The Blue Lagoon A Different Interpretation
by kidfromsix
Summary: This story is basically a slightly different re-telling of the Blue Lagoon story, Dean is a bit more down to earth, with a little more common sense. Emma is...Well, Emma. However people can change, will she? Rated M for adult situations and language
1. Chapter 1

**The Blue Lagoon…A different Interpretation**

**I do not nor have I ever owned the rights to "The Blue Lagoon."**

This is a somewhat different "take" on The Blue Lagoon, "The Awakening" I believe it's a little more realistic and earthy interpretation of the story.

The story opens as Dean McMullen slowly regains consciousness after swimming from the sinking sea plane that was taking him as well as Mr. Christiansen, Emma Robinson and two other students to Trinidad to help build a school for children. On the way, a freak accident involving a large bird striking the windshield of the aircraft and killing the pilot caused the airplane to spin out of control, and crash into the ocean. As far as he knows, Dean is the only survivor.

I remember the sun beating down unmercifully upon my back, my mouth was full of sand, I was very weak from swimming, using all my strength to make it to shore. As I slowly made it to my hands and knees, spitting out sand from my mouth, I knew I had swallowed too much seawater.

Looking around, I saw that I was roughly one hundred feet from the jungle; on what island I had not the foggiest fucking clue. I then remembered the others, Mr. Christiansen, Alex, and Torrey, Emma. I remember us flying along staring out the windows at the blue Caribbean below us, when suddenly the windshield shattered and the pilot's head being practically coming off in front of us. After that it was a ride of sheer terror, no amusement park ride could ever hope to compete for the terror we all felt as the airplane spun out of control towards the sea. As I stood, I looked around for anybody else who might have survived, but saw nobody.

I tried to remember how I escaped from the sinking airplane, but my mind is still a blur, all I know is that I must have made it 'cause here I am. I started to stumble along the beach, as I walked, I realized I had no shoes on, my sandals must have come off as I was escaping from the aircraft. I began to call out for the others, but the only sound was the crashing surf on the beach. Suddenly up ahead of me I saw what looked like someone lying on the beach. I began to run, and almost fell, as my legs were still pretty weak from the swimming I had done.

As I came nearer, I saw that it was a girl, lying there, her body still half in the water, I rushed up to her hoping she was still alive, turning her over, I realized it was Emma Robinson. At first, I thought she was dead, she lay perfectly still her soaked cloths covered in sand, and her hair snarled and stringy. I kneeled down and carefully rolled her over, tilted her head back, and forced her mouth open checking for anything that might be blocking her breathing. Pinching her nostrils closed, I placed my mouth over hers and breathed into her mouth. Nothing happened, so I rolled her on her side, and slapped her hard between the shoulder blades. Rolling her back, I continued to blow into her mouth. Suddenly, she burst to life, coughing up seawater, and gasping, I assisted her on to her hands and knees where she promptly began to vomit up water, as she fought for breath. "Cough it up Emma," I said, open your lungs breathe in, that's it breathe in!"

Slowly, she began to recover, eventually sitting up on the beach, until I said, "C'mon, Emma. Let's move up under the trees over there get out of this sun, and off this beach. I tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away, "Don't touch me," she said, still trying to recover normal breathing. As we made our way up to the tree line, she began to look around.

"Unless they're further up the beach, I think we're the only survivors Emma, I said. She then gave me a disapproving look, "Don't touch me, just leave me alone, I'll find the others on my own." She then reached to her hip pocket for what was no doubt her "lifeline." "My phone is gone, did you taker it?" I glared at her, "Why the fuck would I take you're damn phone? The seawater ruined it, probably fell out when you were swimming to shore." My swearing at her must have taken her by surprise, because she suddenly backed down, and became submissive. "Look Emma," I quickly replied, "I'm sorry for swearing at you, but when I'm scared and nervous, I tend to do that. Sit down over here, we need to talk."

She sat down on a fallen palm; I stood and studied her for a moment. I had been noticing this chick for a little while now, unfortunately, she was part of that rarefied social class of stuck up high school girls, who always got their choice of guys. I was not part of that group, there was nothing wrong with my looks, I just came from a different social class, her parents as well as the parents of all her exclusive friends were of the "professional" class, the office managers, department heads, people who taught at the local community college.

My friends and I knew about these girls, we heard all the rumors and stories about the jocks, the parties, the "look the other way," attitude of their parents in regards to sex and alcohol. Emma and her friends through their parents money and education, had clear sailing on life's highway, when they got drunk or stopped for DUI's, they never spent a night in jail, some of them made no bones about the fact that they had sex in their parents beds when they were off somewhere else. I was reminded of that show "Pretty Little Liars" it was about these girls and their semi charmed lives.

In a million years, I never thought I'd get anywhere near a girl like Emma, or any of her kind for that matter, yet here she was sitting right in front of me coughing and trying to come to grips with the fact that her "lifeline" hence her whole world was gone. She looked at me with disdaining eyes, and that arrogant expression on her face, well that would soon change.

"Certainly we can't be the only ones left," she whimpered plaintively. "Why not," I replied, "We're just damn lucky none of us are hurt, Look Emma, I hate to break it to you, but we're on an island, as to whether there's anyone else here I can't say, but for now, we've got to stay hidden, if someone should come don't be running out to greet them, we'll watch, and see what they're up to." She looked at me as if I had lobsters crawling out my ears, "What! You're crazy, of course I'll run out to them, you're welcome to stay here, but I've got things to do, my parents will be scared to death about me."

I shook my head, "Stop and think for a moment, girl, where are we?" She looked at me with a puzzled expression, "On an island in the Caribbean, why?" Sighing, I replied, "What two groups are found quite often in the Caribbean?" Still looking puzzled, she said, "Tourists?" Shaking my head, I realized I had my work cut out for me, "Sorry Em, but I was thinking more along the lines of modern day pirates, and drug runners. While you and the others were partying, I was talking to an old fisherman, about fishing, he also told me this whole area is filled with local pirate gangs who often times work with the drug dealers, when they're not out looting yachts sailing through the area. You run out to people you see on the beach or in the jungle, you just may run into some of those stalwart citizens. Do you know what they'd do to someone like you? I'll be blunt Emma, I don't want to have to listen to you scream your lungs out while they rape you to death or torture you. Then I'd be obligated to try and rescue you, and with no weapons, that would be a little hard, probably getting myself killed in the process. Is that what you want?" She looked at me, suddenly realizing the truth in what I had just said. "No," "I thought not, don't worry we'll get off this island, we're in the Caribbean after all, this isn't the sixteen hundreds when there weren't any other populated islands around, now let's try and figure out a plan of some sort."

Emma put her head down and began to cry, when all else fails, cry, yeah, that will solve everything, just great! I took a seat on the log next to her and said, "Have a good cry if you think it will help, but seriously, we need to talk Emma," She sobbed for a few more minutes, before looking at me with tear filled eyes, "We're going to die, aren't we?" My first instinct was to laugh, but I maintained a stoic appearance, "Nobody is going to be dying around here, at least while I have anything to say about it." I put my arm around her shoulder, and surprisingly she made no attempt to shake it off.

"Let's look at this thing objectively Emma, first of all, we need to find fresh water, then a source of food, but we've got to be extremely careful on that account, I know my berries and mushrooms back home, but not here in the tropics. I've got a couple ideas on getting fish, but as for hunting, all I can do is make a spear, or possibly a bow and arrows, depending on the kind of wood we find.

As far as any animals around here, I'm thinking rats…" "Yecch!" replied Emma, "None of that for me!" "Cold rice, and a little rat meat, that was Charlie's idea of R and R." Emma looked at me strangely, "What?" Shrugging, I replied, "Never mind me, I watch too many movies. Anyway, there could be wild pigs, goats, but I need a good way to kill them, then there's getting a fire started, and…Well you get the idea." "Do we have to do that, can't we just eat berries and plants?" "I'm sorry Emma, but there's a better chance of finding a source of meat on this island than much in the way of berries or edible plants, why, are you a vegetarian or something?"

She nodded, "Well you'd just better put that little "habit" on hiatus because we're going to be doing a lot of heavy labor, you're going to need protein, I'm sorry girl, but that's the way it has to be, the last I saw, there wasn't a friggin Whole Foods around here." Emma began to wail again, all I could do was look up at the sky, and say to myself, "Why me Lord. Look Emma, I've been hunting with my dad and Uncle, I know how to gut and clean fish as well as game, I know how to use guns and knives, camp craft, all that, unfortunately, I don't remember everything, and some of it requires more tools than I have. All I have on me right now is my Leatherman, and a pocket knife, they're better than nothing, I can fashion a spear, and probably a bow and arrows with them, but there's a lot I can't remember, but we're still ahead of the game with what I can remember, how about you, have any skills that might help us?"

This question silenced her sobbing for a moment, she stopped and looked up. "Were you ever in the girl scouts?" She shook her head, "I didn't think so," I replied, it's obvious you're straight, but I had to ask." A look of indignation appeared on her face, "What's that supposed to mean?" she snapped. "Ah, forget it, maybe I'll tell you some other time, but seriously do you have any skills that can help us, know any first aid, cooking? Anything at all?" "I learned how to weave baskets at a parks department class when I was little." "Do you still remember how to do it?" I asked. Thinking to herself, she replied, "I think, I'd have to practice first." "Great, that's a start anyway."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

I was finally able to get Emma to calm down, once that was accomplished, I continued. "We don't have much to set up "housekeeping" but I've got an idea. Ever see the movie "Castaways" with Tom Hanks?" She shook her head, "no." "Well I did, Hanks was in the same situation we're in right now, he found all sorts of crap washed up on the beach, this being the Caribbean, I'm betting there's tons of stuff washed up on shore, stuff that we can use. For starters, I notice that you don't have any shoes or sandals either, if we're going to blunder around this island, we're going to need foot protection. All it takes is to step on a thorn or piece of metal and the next thing you know you have a dangerous infection, and since there aren't any drug stores around, you're looking at a pretty serious problem. We also need to find a source of fresh water, as well as a safe place to sleep. Not knowing what sort of critters are running around here, I don't want something thinking I'm it's dinner."

Emma seemed to be considering everything I was telling her looked at me and asked. "What should we do next?" I looked up at the late afternoon sky, and said. 'It will be near dusk soon, let's take a chance and make a quick check of the beach, I really want to find something we can use to protect our feet." Together, we headed down to the surf. "Grab any small pieces of dry driftwood, we've got to get a fire going as well, also let me see anything you find, you may not think something is useful, but I might."

We slowly walked up the beach, I was right about all sorts of trash washing up, in the half an hour we spent beachcombing, we found a nice piece of nylon rope, a couple gallon milk jugs, a couple wine bottles, and our most valuable find, an automobile wheel with tire and rim. It was buried in the sand, we almost missed it, but Emma stepped on it and noticed the unusual shape. It took us about fifteen minutes to dig it out with our hands. The last item was a large piece of plastic washed up on shore. We returned to our original location where I rigged up the plastic as a rain shelter using the rope. As it was getting dark, Emma and I collected several palm fronds and piles of leaves for bedding. My last task was making a drill to create a spark that would hopefully ignite a small pile of tinder. I had Emma take some of the driest pieces of driftwood and shave off flakes of wood with my pocketknife. I took a small board Emma had found, and cut a notch and hole in the middle of it. I cut a small branch and using a strand from the rope we found fabricated a small bow.

Using the drill I cut from a stouter stick, I proceeded to work the bow spinning the drill in the hole I had made in the board. With my instruction, Emma kneeled down and gently blew on the tinder just below the hole in the board. After several false starts, I managed to get a good rhythm going, and after about twenty minutes, finally got the beginnings of a flame started. This was a very critical time, we had smoke, a tiny glow, and hope. Emma carefully fed the embryonic flame with the scrapings from the driftwood, slowly but surely, the fire grew, until there was enough flame that we could transfer it to the carefully placed pile if wood I had prepared earlier.

Eventually we had a warm fire burning brightly in front of us. My fire building efforts brought both of us hope and comfort, "Where did you learn to do that?" asked Emma. "Dad made me learn how to build a fire using only things I could find at hand, my shoelace worked for the bow string." Pointing at the tire, I said, "There's our footwear, as well as a handy fire pit, the tread from that tire will make great Viet Cong Sandals, however I'm not sure how easy I can cut through the rubber, there's steel wires all around the edges and sides of the tire. If I can get the tire off that rim, I'm hoping there's a tube inside which we can make quickie sandals with."

I must have been talking to myself for the last five minutes, for when I looked at her; she was fast asleep on the "bed" we had fashioned. As I looked at her sleeping form, I realized I had been saddled with the responsibility for another human being. Emma was totally dependant on me, by herself, she could only die, she had no skills, or knowledge to stay alive. Every friend I had would kill to be in the situation I was in right now, stranded on a deserted island with the prom queen. Sadly, most would think only of fucking her brains out, and leaving it at that, but I was thinking far beyond that. After all, I was in the same boat, as her, and even though I had more survivor knowledge than she did, it wasn't near enough; one mistake could get both of us killed.

I woke with a start sometime in the night; our fire was almost burned out, quickly adding more wood, brought it back to life. As I sat in front of the flames, I listened for the sounds of the night, squawks and grunts revealed that there were parrots and wild pigs around. Fortunately, nothing ventured into our camp, shortly before dawn a light rain began to fall, by forming a channel in the middle of the plastic sheet; I was able to collect rainwater into one of the plastic jugs we found.

Emma awoke complaining about being hungry and thirsty, "I'm starving too Emma, but there's nothing we can do about it as yet," I said. "Here, have some of this rainwater I've collected, it's not much, but it will keep you hydrated, until we can find a better source." She was not sure about drinking rainwater from an old milk jug washed up on the beach, but I had cut it in half, and cleaned it out. "I have to, uh, you know…" hinted Emma, "Over behind that tree, that's where I went earlier, so be careful," I chuckled. Our fire was still hanging in there, and I was certainly going to have to find more wood and soon. The rain was starting to taper off so the day promised to be hot and humid. As I sat there, I began to study the tire we found, closer inspection revealed it to be rather old judging from the rust on the rim. I took the knife part of my Leatherman and cut into it, surprisingly it cut the old rubber easier than I expected, by the time Emma was back, I had a length of it cut off, enough to make two pairs of sandals.

"Kinda rough isn't it," I said to Emma, "With out any toilet paper, I don't know if they have poison ivy down here, so just be careful what you use OK?" She laughed at my joke, which was a good sign, morale was very important; I was hoping sandals would be another. The rubber cut better than I dared hope, I guess being buried in the sand for so long did it. I proceeded to cut four pieces allowing a small piece to act as a heel guard. I had Emma stand on two pieces and traced her feet in the rubber with my knife. I then did the same with my two pieces. It took a while, but before long, I had cut the rubber pieces into foot shaped soles for our sandals.

Emma and I discussed how we could effectively bind the soles to our feet, I was right, about the tire, there was an inner tube inside. I carefully removed it, and with a little ingenuity, we came up with some nice bindings, using pieces of inner tube, and strands of rope. Finally, we stood there fitted out on our new genuine Viet Cong Sandals. "They aren't much in the way of a fashion statement," I observed, "But they'll protect our feet." Emma's spirits were greatly lifted, and without any warning, she came over to me and placed her hands on my face, and pressed her lips to mine. "You're pretty smart coming up with these sandals," she said. "I grinned at her, and replied, "You're pretty smart too Emma, for coming up with the bindings for these things, that's what I mean about working together, we each had an idea, put them together, and solved a problem. Now let's go find some more wood, and hopefully drinking water." I built up the fire to keep it going, and off we went.

It took a little time to get used to our new footwear, stopping from time to time to adjust them, but finally we had them adjusted properly, and could move faster. About half an hour later I stopped to listen, "What are we stopping for?" asked Emma. "I think I hear water, as in waterfall, listen." She heard it too, we then moved at an angle towards the sound. Suddenly we came to a clearing, spread out in front of us was the most beautiful lagoon I had ever seen, the water was beautiful blue, and I could tell at a glance, it was all fresh water.

We approached with caution, never knowing whom or what might be around, listening for any disturbance from the birds or otherwise. The waterfall we heard came down off a high rocky cliff, straight down into the lagoon. As I studied the shallow part of the lagoon, I spotted fair sized fish darting around, FOOD! Together we also discovered something else, signs that others had been here at one time. Off to the side of the rocks was an overhang protecting a shallow cave, it wasn't much but in looking it over, I realized it would keep the rain off us, and with the plastic we found, I figured we could create a sort of "wall" to protect us even more. We also found an old aluminum pot, as well as an old whiskey bottle inside, along with what looked to have been someone's "bed," at one time. As we were poking around, Emma also found a broken off piece of a knife blade, it was rusty as hell, but I figured that I could clean it up with sand.

Studying the bottle, I noticed it had a rather thick bottom, which gave me an idea. "Emma, gather up some firewood, nothing too big, look for stuff we can use as tinder, you know what I'm looking for." While she was doing that, I sat down and carefully used my Leatherman, to carefully break the bottle. First, I carefully scratched a ring around the base of it, working my blade deeper and deeper into the glass every time I re-traced the line. Finally, I tapped the line with my Leatherman, causing the bottle to break, more or less evenly. Now I had a "lens" from the bottom of the bottle. Using the wood Emma found, I found a place on the rock in direct sunlight. Fluffing up the tinder, I focused the sun onto it. Although the bottle glass wasn't a magnifying glass, I was still able to cause the tinder to catch fire. Carefully nurturing the flame, we soon had a nice little fire going. This earned me another kiss from Emma, who was now starting to sound more optimistic, all I knew was that this kiss lasted just a little longer than the last one; anyway, it was good enough for me.

We transferred our fire to the rock shelter, and while I fashioned a spear, I had Emma cut palm fronds for a bed, as well as something else I had in mind. "Tomorrow, we'll go back and get the plastic, the rope and the tire," I said, "I think we'll set up camp here. I also want to explore this outcropping, climbing up those rocks looks like high ground, probably a high point for this island. If that's true, maybe we can build a signal fire up there."

Now we had two of our needs taken care of, shelter and fresh water, and although I was strictly a trout and walleye kinda guy, those fish in the lagoon would have to substitute. I explained my plan to Emma, who surprisingly, was ready to try for a fish dinner as well. Before I was ready to try my luck with my spear, I kept looking at that waterfall, I was hot and sweaty, and by God, I sure needed a shower. Emma saw me starting to take my clothes off and screeched, "Oh my God! What are you doing?" Shrugging, I replied, "I'm going to take a shower under that waterfall Emma, care to join me?" I continued to take off my pants, looked at the horror on Emma's face, so kept my underwear on. With nothing but my underwear and sandals, I proceeded to move towards the cooling water, taking up a stance under it. Emma stared at me in horror, why I wasn't really sure, I was pretty damn sure a chick like that had probably been to bed with any number of guys, so why the fake outrage, I couldn't be sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

I stood under the cascading water, letting it wash over me, the feeling was intoxicating. I found that if I stepped back just a little, I could lesson the amount of water falling on me. There also seemed to be a sort of "hollow" space behind the waterfall. I turned around, and was looking down at a fissure in the rock when I felt something behind me. As I stood up, I turned right into the arms of a very naked Emma. Before I could speak, she put her arms around my shoulders, and began to press her lips to mine. We kissed for what seemed like forever, finally breaking away, I asked, "What changed your mind?" "You," she said, "I now realize you've been doing all the work, I'm acting like a spoiled bitch, I want to help, I really do," backing slightly away, she touched her finger to my nose, Please teach me, I don't want to be a burden, I have nothing to offer you in return except, maybe…" She gave me a coy little smile and stepped further back allowing me to gaze on her body. At this point, I knew what all my friends would do, damnit! I sure wanted to as well, but duty before pleasure. I took her in my arms again, and spoke into her ear. "I'm going to have to take a rain check on you're offer Emma, as much as I'd like to jump your bones, I just can't. Unless you've got a stash of birth control pills, you haven't told me about, we simply cannot risk it. In case you haven't noticed, there are no doctors on this island, what if you get pregnant? I haven't the slightest clue how to birth a baby, assuming there are no complications, please, don't take offense, I'd love nothing more than to do the beach scene from "From Here to Eternity," with you, but I simply can't, we can't."

She stood there and looked at me, for some reason, "Store closing in five minutes," flashed in my brain, but I couldn't help it, some things just take priority. Emma sighed, and patted my chest, "You're right, once again I'm being the burden, just the "dumb" girl who doesn't think, I never think." She started to cry, I reached over and took her into my arms again, "Please don't cry Emma," I said, a soothing tone to my voice. "You're doing great, we're working together, it just takes a little time, that's all, c'mon, let's go and see if we can catch our dinner."

As we passed under the waterfall. I felt things under my sandals, stooping down into the water, I felt around, Glass! I scooped up pieces of what must have been bottles that had been tossed into the stream that was now cascading down behind me. "This part of the lagoon is covered with fucking glass Emma, never come in here without your sandals on." Feeling carefully around I found something else rather interesting, it was a metal army canteen lodged in the rocks below, the cap was loose on it, which must have caused it to fill with water, and eventually sink, but we now had something to carry water in. I showed Emma my "find" "This will allow us to travel away from here, and still have water to drink."

Emma hadn't bothered to slip back into her cutoff jeans, and smiled as she pointed to my wet underwear. "You look a little silly in just your underwear," she said, I've seen naked guys before." "I'll just bet you have," I thought however, I reached down and pulled them off. The expected thing happened, causing Emma to giggle, "Oh come on Em, he's not that small!" She continued to giggle, "I didn't say "he" was," she replied, "It's all right, I guess it's just the way you're "thing" just suddenly grew like that is all." Well the "damage" was done; I threw my underwear onto a nearby rock and moved towards the shallow part of the lagoon. "If I can spear any of these "guys" I'll toss them to you Em, put them in a pile if you would please." It was hard to concentrate on fishing with the fact that I was standing near a naked "hottie" like Emma being totally nude myself, but eventually my "manhood" calmed down, and returned to normal, allowing me to think about how I was going to spear these fish.

I stood perfectly still, and let the fish come up to me, keeping my spear point just barely in the water; I waited until the fish was right under it. Easier said than done, I must have tried seven or eight times, with no success, until I developed some subtle refinements to my technique, finally spearing four fish, not big ones, but of decent size. By now Emma had put her cutoffs back on but remaining topless, I took the hint, but before putting my jeans back on, I cut off the legs leaving me with cutoff is like Emma had on.

"So Em, got any idea of how we can cook these little beauties? I can clean them, but after that, I'm not sure what to do, we don't have a handy fry pan with us." Emma sat down of a rock and said, I remember watching a show once, about how they cook fish in Hawaii once. As I recall, they built a bed of coals from a fire, wrapped the fish in leaves, and tied the leaves together with vines, placed them over the coals, then put more coals on top, then just let them cook." "Any idea of how long?" I asked. She shrugged, I can't remember, it didn't seem like that long, the fish was ready by the end of the program." "Well what kind of leaves could we use," I wondered. Both of us looked around, finally settling on kudzu leaves and the vine that went with it. I remember reading that kudzu was edible and the leaves weren't poisonous, so why not!

We built up our fire, and while that was happening, I gutted the fish, and cut the heads off, carefully wrapping them in the leaves, and wrapping vine around the whole package. Once the fire had burned down, leaving a nice bed of coals, I took a stick and pushed some of them back, whereby I placed the fish on the coals, and quickly covered them with the pile of coals. Having no watch, we could only guess the time. Using my pocketknife, Emma hand fashioned crude eating utensils, thus allowing us to pick apart the meat, and eat. When I was pretty sure twenty minutes hand passed, I shoved back the coals, and scooped up the burned leaf packages into the pot we found, spreading them out on a rock, we proceeded to open the leaves, and look at our meal.

"Well here goes nothing," I said, and cut off a piece of fish with my knife. Certainly, it seemed to be cooked enough, maybe a little too much, but it was hot and tasted all right. "Could use a little salt, and lemon juice," I said, "But it's hot and good, dig in Emma." Cautiously, she poked around until she got a piece that suited her. I watched her as she chewed; she didn't puke it up, and in fact took more. "Kind of bland tasting," she added, "But I'm starved." We ate the fish, and even the leaves washing everything down with water. The meal did wonders for our spirits, causing Emma to laugh and kiss me some more. "Tomorrow, we'll bring the stuff we salvaged from our old site, and bring it back here, I'd also like to take another hike up the beach and see what we can find," I said. After "supper", we took another hour to cache wood, and large leave for our bed, the fire was burning nicely.

"You know Em, I seem to recall another way to cook fish, and that is you split a small log and tack the filleted pieces of fish to it with wood pegs then push the pieces of wood close to the fire. If I can find a way to split a small log, I'll give it a try." We felt more secure in our rock shelter, with the jungle sounds all around us. I've slept in better beds, but under the circumstances, this was all right. We lay together in silence Emma's head resting on my arm. Then out of the blue, came. "Dean?" "Umm." "Have you ever done it with a girl?" "Oh Christ! Here we go," I thought. "You know I'm going with Marla Webster, what…" "That's not what I asked you Dean." I continued to lie there, as any movement would alert her as to my truthfulness. "Ah…Um…Well you know…" "Don't lie to me Dean, my friend Emily Collins knows Marla, they talk." "No." was all I'd say. Emma didn't move at all, but I felt her breathing. "If it wasn't for the fact that I could become pregnant, would you make love to me?" I guffawed, "Em, I'd make love to you in a New York minute, and I think you know that, but we just can't take the chance." There was more silence, Emma continuation to remain motionless. "Ever heard of 69ing?" "I smiled to myself, "shit! Here we go," I thought to myself. "Uh, I've heard of it, but never actually done it, Marla doesn't…Well you know." The next thing I knew was that she was unzipping my jeans, and pulling them down, I could make out her form pulling her own shorts off, and shifting around on me. "And AWAAAYYY We GO!"

In the morning it was necessary for us to take another "shower" under the waterfall again, especially Emma, who's face and hair were sticky with my cum. The "taste" of Emma was still in my mouth, which took considerable rinsing. No doubt about it, she was certainly skilled in pleasing her men, I don't know how we did it, but we managed to do everything but actually screw, Jeezeist, Em was a wildcat!

Once we were cleaned up, it was off for a day of foraging. I fashioned a "possible" bag from the leg of my jeans tying one end in a knot until I could find suitable material to sew one end closed. I also made a crude carrier for our canteen; after making sure the fire was built up, we retraced our steps back to our first camp. This time we were careful on approaching it, sneaking up like thieves. Nothing had been disturbed, so I put the smaller stuff in my possibles bag, and with the exception of the tire wrapped everything in the plastic. I fashioned a crude backpack using some of the rope for straps and off to the beach we went.

As we were trudging down the beach, Emma pointed to a cluster of palms on a small promontory of jungle sticking out onto the beach. "Aren't those coconut palms?" she asked. I looked closer, "Damn straight they are," I replied. We immediately headed for the trees where we found a few coconuts on the ground. They didn't appear to be rotten, so using my pocketknife; I drilled a hole in one end. I gave the first one to Emma then picking up one for myself did the same. After we drank all the milk in them, I used the piece of the knife Emma had found, and cracked them open. We finished our "breakfast" of coconut milk and coconut meat sitting under the tree until a coconut fell nearby. "We'd better get out of here," exclaimed Emma, "We'll get bonked." We combed the beach for almost a mile, finding nothing we could really use except some more rope and a couple more milk jugs.

I finally decided to head back, when Emma spotted something wallowing in the surf. It was further down the beach, so we continued down the beach. As we got closer, I realized it was a small yacht with the mast broken off as well as a broken keel. I ordered Emma to wait on shore and keep a look out. I waded out to the craft, which was in chest deep water, pulling myself on board; I climbed down inside, where I found trouble. The inside bulkhead wall had bullet holes in it, and there was blood on the floor. Looking closer, I quickly realized what had happened; some poor bastards had been hijacked by pirates. Looking through the cupboards, I found several cans of soup, sardines, vegetables, and even canned bacon. I found a cloth bag in which I threw everything including a small coffee pot and silverware, including a couple steak knives. I also found a bar of soap as well as towels and some deck shoes. Before I left, I opened a small hatch to find a flare gun with flares, as well as a small first aid kit.

When I returned to Emma I simply said, "Beach combing's over, back to camp." Emma was aghast at the stuff I'd recovered, but I remained closed mouthed. I stopped at our first camp, and spent considerable time, to Emma's puzzlement in erasing all traces of our presence, as well as any tracks. Emma could tell something was wrong but I wasn't talking.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Before I showed Em everything I found in the boat, I looked her dead in the eye. "Emma, there's something I need to tell you, I don't want to frighten you, but you have to know. When I boarded that yacht, there were bullet holes in the wall, and blood on the floor. It had all the earmarks of pirates, whoever that boat belonged to is probably dead, and if there were any women aboard, I hope for their sakes they are as well. Honestly, that boat may have drifted from anywhere, as beat up as it was, there's simply no telling where it came from. This means we must be so careful from now on, this lagoon doesn't look like anyone has visited it in a long time, but you can bet there are those that no doubt know of it's existence, for that reason, we're going to have to find another place to live."

"But I like it here," she replied, "It's so calm and peaceful." I nodded my head, "I know it is, but we simply can't risk someone like those pirates stumbling on us, think of what would happen." I finally convinced her to the reality of the situation, but for now, we were content to go through the "loot" I recovered from the yacht.

Placing everything in front of us, we discovered that we had three cans of soup, two chicken and noodle, one tomato. Two cans of corned beef, two cans of mixed vegetables, one can of bacon, and one small can of coffee, as well as two small shakers of salt and pepper. There was also an opened box of Earl Grey tea, which Emma thought she might like. We also had two plastic drinking glasses, as well as four plastic cups. Three spoons, two forks, two dinner knives as well as two steak knives. One roll of precious toilet paper and one metal box containing our greatest discovery, a lighter, and a box of farmer matches, and a sewing kit. "I can't figure why the pirates didn't take all this stuff," I said. "Maybe the pirates saw someone coming and took off," speculated Emma. Besides the boat shows, which were too small for me, but fit Emma's feet, we had a couple Hawaiian shirts as well as a pair of cargo pants. Rounding things out with the first aid kit containing a bottle of Tylenol, as well as Neosporin and band aids.

All things considered, we had made quite a haul, but the fate of the people on board troubled me, tomorrow we would move again. That night Emma woke up screaming claiming, she had had a bad dream, thinking that it had been her parents aboard that yacht. I took her in my arms, and calmed her down until she fell back to sleep again. The next morning we ate coconuts along with the can of tomato soup, I kept wrestling with the idea of going back to that boat to see what else I could find, but I eventually decided against it as being too risky. Instead, we explored around finding a small rocky half cave that was off anything that looked like a trail. It was too small for us to get into, but it made a perfect cache for our loot. Taking only the essentials, we hid the rest of our things in the little cave, and concealed the opening with rocks and brush. Marking the nearby trees with marks only we could recognize, we carefully took note of the location before continuation on our way.

Curious about the rocky high ground, Emma and I worked our way up a steep outcropping, noticing signs of pigs as well as what might have been goats. "My next project is going to be a bow and arrows," I told Emma. "once we find another safer place, it will have to wait though." We eventually climbed to an overlook revealing the north side of the island below us. Taking a break by eating another coconut, we looked out over the blue Caribbean. I spotted what I thought might have been a boat way out on the ocean, but it was simply too far away to be sure.

Emma didn't see it so I said nothing. While we lay there, I began to notice that the rock went even higher, and that we were merely on a sort of ledge. My curiosity piqued, I got up and walked back a little way down the rough path we had climbed. "Where are you going?' asked Emma. "Stay there for a moment Em," I replied, I want to check something, keep watching the beach."

I began to look hard at the rock, it was covered in kudzu and jungle growth, but my hunter's eye picked out a discernable path, now covered with growth. "An old animal trail" I thought at first, but as I began to work my way slowly up the overgrown path, I realized this was no game trail, this rock had been hacked away with picks and shovels, looking closer, I could even see some of the old marks on the stone. Emma had gotten concerned about me and was at the bottom of the trail starting to come up. "Stay there Em," I shouted back down. "This trail is too narrow for two people." Although walking in single file it could be traversed, but I didn't want her coming up here as yet.

Reaching the top I was rewarded with disappointment, the view was great, and although the rock continued a little further up that was it…Nothing. The side of the rock was covered in vines and I put my hand out to steady myself as I prepared to turn around and head back down. As I put pressure on the rock wall beneath the vines, something moved, in fact it moved so much I almost lost my balance. I regained my stand, and looked closer at the rock. Clearing away the vines, I now saw that the rock wasn't solid, but stones piled up to conceal something. "Stand by Em," I shouted, "I think I've found something." I began to push the stones collapsing the stones into a cave of some sort. Clearing away more rocks, I managed to create an opening large enough to crawl into. Once inside, I looked around in the dimness, I gasped when my eyes finally became adjusted to the dim light. "On My God!" I whistled as my eyes took in four crates stacked on stones. There were also several metal ammo cans sitting on a small ledge hacked into the back wall. I looked closer at the crates all painted in OD green with stenciled lettering on all sides of the crates. "Property of US Government, Carbine Caliber .30 M1" A quick check revealed six cans of ammunition, as well as a larger can containing oil and bore cleaner. I got so lost in my "find" I almost forgot about Emma.

I made my way back down the pathway to where she was waiting. "You won't believe what I've found up there Em, come with me, but be careful, take your time, it's incredible." She demanded to know what I found but I remained silent. Slowly we made our way back up the path, I ushered her into the cave, "What's all this?" She asked. "It's an old weapons cache Em look at all this stuff. It's awesome!" The crates of guns failed to impress her, even causing some angst. "What are you going to do with these?" she asked. "Defend ourselves silly," I replied, "And hunt some pigs. I'm a pretty good shot, and I'll show you how to shoot as well, my uncle has one of these, he let me shoot it one time. The recoil isn't bad; I'll make a good shot out of you." She started to give me a load of that anti-gun crap, but I silenced her, "Em, it's important, we simply can't go around here defenseless, it's just not smart, now I won't hear any more of that talk, now I think this will be our new home, we've got a good view, and I'm sure nobody will be coming up here." "Where do you think all these guns came from," she asked, "Won't the people who put them here be coming back for them?"

"Judging from the condition of things I don't think so, I think these guns have been here a long time, I'm guessing from the nineteen sixties anyway, these could have even been stashed her for the bay of Pigs invasion back in 1961." "Bay of Pigs, what's that?" inquired Emma. I looked at her then said to myself, "Oh yeah, I should have known. "The Bay of Pigs was an attempt by Cuban rebels to oust Castro, the CIA supported and trained them, but at the last moment, Kennedy got cold feet and backed out leaving all those guys on the Cuban beach for Castro to put in prison. I read a book once that told all about it, Khrushchev, and Castro were so pissed about it the Cuban Missile crisis started because of it." Looking out towards the ocean I continued, "We may be closer to Cuba than I thought." "What was the Cuban Missile crisis," asked Emma. All I could do was shake my head.

We returned to our cache in the jungle, and loaded up all our stuff, returning to our new home just before dusk. We returned down the path once more to cut palm leaves and grasses for our bed, as well as wood for a fire. For our evening meal, we ate the last coconut as well as a can of chicken soup. I used the rusty knife blade to open the crates finding four carbines in each one, I also discovered one crate of .45 Colts and one can of ammunition for them. The M1's were covered in cosmolene, a thick grease that had hardened from all these years of storage. The .45's weren't much better. I also found some camouflaging clothing, but age and mold had taken its toll, the old uniforms simply fell apart, we ended up using the rotting cloth for rags to clean the carbines. I also found another canteen with a case, as well as a couple pistol belts. There were some holsters, but again, age had destroyed the leather. There was also a kerosene lantern hanging from a hook, but the kerosene had long since dried up.

Using the crates, and lids, we fashioned a decent bed to lie on, piling the grass and palm leaves on and using the shirts as impromptu "blankets", we were able to get some sleep. During the night however, a terrific storm came up, piling the stones back up in the doorway we were able to keep most of the rain out, since our bed was situated off to one side, we remained dry and cozy while the storm raged outside. As I lay on the bed with Emma cuddled up next to me, I heard a dribbling sound, lighting a torch I made from a stick, and some cloth strips I located a fissure in the rock where a steady stream of water was coming in. By propping up one of the crates, I was able to place a milk jug under the stream and catch the rainwater, by morning, the jug was full.

It continued to rain hard well into the morning, with the wind picking up even more. Emma and I piled the rest of the rocks up in the cave entrance, leaving only a small "window" to look out. Despite the raging storm, we were quite cozy, the inside of the cave went down a short distance in one corner, the water coming in from the fissure in the cave wall seemed to find it's way down there, so I designated it our "bathroom" with a little "squatting, we were able to do our "business" without having to go outside. For most of the morning, Emma and I worked at cleaning the grease off the carbines, even holding the various parts over the fire to melt the hardened grease off the weapons.

"It must be a regular hurricane out there," I said to Emma, as I peered out the little window. "I can barely even see the ocean, I'm sure glad I found this place." Eventually we got bored cleaning the guns, so we took a break, lying on the bed; we were soon making out, our tongues exploring the other's mouths. It didn't take long to throw off our cloths, and assume the "position." Our fingers and tongues gently caressing each other's private parts. Emma begged me to fuck her, but I kept resisting, it was tearing me apart, but I just could not take the chance on Emma getting pregnant, Goddamn! What I wouldn't have given for one condom. I asked her if trying it the other way would work, she told me she and a boyfriend had tried it once, but it hurt her too much, so they quit, "We hand all sorts of jellies and lubes," she admitted, "But his dick just hurt me too much."

Emma proved to be an expert at giving head; her special "technique" drove me crazy. In the end, we fell asleep in each other's arms naked but happy.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Both of us spent a fitful night, even though we were cozy and dry, the howling wind, thunder, lightening, as well as the driving rain kept both of us in a semi-state of uneasiness. Sometime around dawn everything suddenly became very still, although I looked our little "window" I couldn't really see anything. The calm continued to last until first light, allowing me to get a look at the sky. Emma was all for going out but I wasn't so sure, something wasn't right, I had a bad feeling, I didn't know much about hurricanes and tropical storms, except what we learned in class shortly before coming on this trip. "I think we're in the "eye" of the storm Em," I observed. "I think we're going to get hit again, and soon." With that in mind, we opened up the cave opening and headed back down as far as the little plateau at the base of the trail. Everything was soaking wet, nothing that could be used for firewood, we did haul back several pieces of bamboo along with kudzu vine. Emma also carried back several palm fronds, "I think I can cut these into strips for weaving, but since it's been a long time since I did anything like this, I'm not sure."

In the end it took, three trips to haul everything we needed back to our cave. Breakfast consisted of the last can of chicken soup along with a cup of coffee for me and tea for Emma. I had decided to save the canned bacon, as well as the corned beef for our emergency rations, once I opened the cans we would have to eat everything at once, having no refrigeration. The bacon we would have to fry up, the corned beef we could eat right out of the can, but that's the way it goes. I was eager to go hunting, a nice little pig roasting over a spit made my mouth water, but all in good time.

With the bamboo, and vines, I fashioned a crude door, cutting the pieces to length was tedious, but while I was doing that, Emma was trying to re-learn something she had done only once when she was ten. As I worked, I watched her sitting there trying to cut the fronds to the proper width. At first, she wasn't having any luck, and her frustration was starting to take its toll, before long she threw everything down and started crying. I stopped what I was doing, and quietly sat next to her, putting my arms around her. "I'm useless," she sobbed. "No you're not Em," I said, squeezing her close. "It's tough to remember something you only did once in your life, I'm having that problem as well, I know there's a way to tie off these vines, dad taught me how to make certain knots several years ago, but I'll be damned if I can remember how. It's the same as you, our problem is that we can't go to the internet and look this shit up. I knew this was going to happen, when I first realized the situation I was in I thought," Oh I'll do all right; I remember doing all this stuff with dad, all the things he showed me, shit! Now that I'm actually having to do it, I can't remember much at all, some things are coming back, but not enough; we'll just have to work these things out is all."

I must have made her feel better, because she leaned over and began to kiss me; we ended "comforting" each other for awhile, until I could feel the wind start to pick up again. I finished my door just as the sky turned black again, using rocks and a few pieces of wood from one of the crates; I was able to get it in place. I checked the water seeping in through the rock fissure, and made sure we had a pot to catch the water in, before the day was out, I had four milk jugs filled with water. While Emma struggled with her weaving, I returned to cleaning the guns, I managed to get two pistols cleaned and in working order, and shortly after that, a couple of M1's as well. Seeing that Emma needed a break, I took time to show her how to strip the carbine, and put it back together. She was reluctant at first, having no faith in herself, but with careful instruction, and repetition, she was field stripping her carbine like a pro in no time. Of course, a lot of hugs and kisses went with the instruction, as well as plenty words of encouragement, I even blindfolded her, and had her tear apart the weapon, and put it back together as well. I demonstrated how to clear her weapon, as well as what to do for stoppages, and immediate action. It wasn't long before I began to notice something, Emma had become more relaxed around these weapons, and soon completely at ease. Around dusk, the storm began to die again, this time I was pretty sure it was finally over. I opened our "door" so more light could enter; Emma took up a position at the entrance so she could work a little longer on her attempts at weaving.

I was back in the cave taking care of "business" when I heard Emma squeal, rushing up to the front she was standing there in the semi-darkness, with a big smile on her face, "I did it, I remember now, I remember how to do this!" I hugged her close and kissed her, "I knew you could do it Em, it just took a little practice that's all." She moved her "operation" over to the little fire we had going for some more light, "I have to keep going with this, or I'll forget again," she said. Emma worked feverishly for another couple of hours before exhaustion and the dwindling supply of firewood called it off.

As we lay in bed, her head resting on my arm, I said, "Em, you're quite a girl I'm sorry for mis-judging you, I couldn't have been more wrong." She said nothing, but cuddled closer, and purred in contentment. In the morning, the sky was clear, we mounted up for our expedition back down to the beach, now that we were heavily armed, I wasn't so worried anymore. "I want to check that wrecked boat out some more if it's still there, I announced. "Also, I'm hoping to spot some wild pigs, so be as quiet as you can as we move."

We worked our way back down to the lagoon, taking a break to swim and stand under the waterfall. As the water poured down on top of us, two naked children in paradise hugged and kissed, our warm bodies pressed close to each other under the deluge. Back at our first camp I was glad to see that the storm had washed out all traces of us ever having been there, we collected more coconuts, and Emma spied something we had missed before. Sea Grapes, "I remember Mr. Christiansen talking about these, when they're ripe, they are a reddish color, as these are," proclaimed Emma. We took all that appeared ripe, then moving further down the tree line, Emma found what she said was a Geiger tree bearing fruit that was white, and according to Emma was edible. I took a moment to praise her, "See Em, you do know stuff, we're working together, this is what it's all about."

The wrecked yacht was now clear up on the beach lying on it's side, with Emma standing guard, I crawled back up into it for another look-see. Everything was soaking wet, however I recovered a couple blankets and a pillow. I also found a backpack with a few cloths in it some socks a couple tee shirts, one of them from "Sloppy Joes" bar in Key West. I also discovered a women's bikini, bringing home the horror of what must have happened to these poor people. More rummaging brought forth a flashlight, an ink pen, toothpaste and a brush, as well as a ball peen hammer. I managed to stuff everything in the backpack just as Emma called out, "Dean, I see a boat on the horizon come look!" I scrambled out of the craft to see what looked like a power yacht moving towards us. "Quick, back up into the jungle, NOW! Em, let's go." We quickly ran back into the forest and moved back the way we had come just inside the tree line which offered us concealment. I stopped behind a small grove of palms about five or six hundred feet down from the yacht, and hunkered down to wait.

It was just as I feared, these weren't tourists or yachters out for a cruise, but were either drug runners, or pirates, and perhaps both. We watched as they came ashore to inspect the yacht, suddenly two of them started looking at the sand and pointing towards the jungle. FUCK! I forgot about leaving tracks, "C'mon Em," I whispered, we're outta here, they're on to us, back to our camp." Since we were down from them, we had a good head start, carefully making sure not to leave any tracks we carefully worked our way back to camp. I also made sure to double back on our tracks a couple of times, and avoid the lagoon area completely. It was late afternoon when we finally reached our cave, I told Emma to stay in the cave as I took up a position by the rocks where the path started. I thought I heard people talking at one time, but nobody ever came near.

While I sat and waited, thoughts of what I might have to do crowded my mind, thoughts of actually having to kill someone weighed on my mind. I then thought of what they would do to my Emma if they caught us, and no doubt, what they had already done to some poor woman who was on that yacht. I steeled myself for what I knew would eventually come, I was sure whoever those people were, they realized someone else was on this island, and that whoever they were must be dealt with. Evening brought a cold camp, there wasn't enough firewood left for any kind of a fire, I had meant to gather some, but the pirates had put that off. We each had a coconut as well as the sea grapes, tomorrow, we would definitely have to collect wood, as well as something to eat, probably more fish from the lagoon.

Even though the pillow and blankets were damp, they were quite an improvement over what we were used to having, both of us were able to sleep better, and be sharper of mind on a day we were going to need it. Carefully moving back down the path, my ears were tuned to the birds, they were chattering away, so I knew there wasn't anybody else around. Stopping at the lagoon, Emma collected firewood we had left from before, since it was under the ledge, it was dry. While she did that, I managed to spear three more fish, my carbine slung over my shoulder, but ready to go.

Before we left, I wanted to take another swim in the lagoon, so we carefully placed our "stuff" just off the path back to our cave; Emma had the cloth bag filled with wood, and a plastic bag filled with my fish as well as kudzu leaves. We both wanted another "shower" to wash off the sweat, so both of us waded out towards the waterfall. Since the pirates had cone ashore, I carried my carbine, as well as a pistol at all times, and demanded that Emma do the same, the carbines weren't so heavy that they were a nuisance, but there was danger out there, and it could show up at anytime.

I carried my .45 in a plastic bag I found on the yacht and the carbine over my head, as did Emma. Both of us were naked, our clothes in a bag with the other stuff, all we wore was our sandals. I carried my pistol wrapped in a plastic bag, and my carbine over my head, as did Emma. We quickly ducked behind the falls, where we could lean our weapons against the wall. Emma then stepped out under the cascading water, but quickly stepped back in. "I saw someone standing off to the left, over near the overhang," whispered Emma; I think it's those pirates." "Fuck!" I snarled, we're trapped, but it won't take long for them to find our stuff, and figure out where we are." I was pretty certain they couldn't see us back behind the falls, so we had an edge, I then put my mouth to her ear and whispered, "Are you ready for this Em? We've got no choice but to shoot our way out, I can't see any other way." She started to shake, "I'm scared, Dean, what are we going to do?" I took her face in my hands, and carefully said, "You can do this Em, you've got to, I've got to, we've no other choice, I won't let them capture you, that's all there is too it, now, as quietly as you can, pull the slide back, and make sure a round goes into the chamber." I did the same; both of us then got down of the wet rock and slowly emerged from the waterfall, "Safety's off!" I said.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Slowly inching our way through the waterfall, I kept my eyes closed for a moment, when I opened them I didn't see anything, "Shit! Where are they?" I thought. Thinking that they might be checking out the overhang where we had our camp, I squatted down, directing Emma to do the same. "Fire when I fire Em, shoot to kill, don't think about it, just fuckin shoot!" My heart was racing a mile a minute; suddenly three men appeared from where the overhang was. It took a moment fro them to realize that we were squatting under the falls, but by then it was too late. Emma and I both opened fire, two dropped right away, the third tried to raise his rifle but I cut him down. "Quick, back under the waterfall," I whisper shouted.

Both of us had gone through our entire fifteen round magazines Emma seemed in shock. Both of us still hadn't come to grips with what we had just done, I quickly replaced both magazines and charged the weapons. Grabbing Emma I began to shake her, as she seemed in a state of shock. "Emma," I said, "Snap out of it, we're going to have to move, there could be more." Slowly she seemed to come out of a trance, saying nothing. "Listen Emma, we have to get back to our camp, can you hear me?" Suddenly her eyes focused on mine, "Yeess, you're right, I'm sorry." "Don't be sorry Em, we did what we had to do, now down on your belly be ready to shoot."

We repeated our previous movement, this time we saw nothing, "Grab our shit, and get back to where the path starts up the rock Em. Hide yourself; I'll be right behind you." Surprisingly she did as she was told; I slung my carbine, but kept my pistol at the ready. I immediately headed to where the men were laying, all three were dead, one hit in the face, the other two in the chest and torso. Standing there looking at my handiwork, my guts came up on me and I bent over and puked all over one of them. "Goddamn! This sure wasn't like the movies, Goddamn it to hell! Why did they have to come here?" I snapped out of my stupor long enough to snatch up an AK one of the men was carrying, along with two handguns and a couple spare magazines. One of the men was wearing a woman's wedding ring around his neck, so I yanked it off. Memories of dozens of video games came back to me, "Always loot he bodies for ammo and money." Checking the other two I found a wallet, which I shoved into my pants, not wanting to waste anymore time, I turned and ran towards our camp, only stopping to grab the bag of firewood and my clothes.

When I reached the path up the rock I found Emma crouched down in some nearby brush, "Go on up Em," I said, I'll watch down here for a bit." She loaded up all the bags like a packhorse and slowly made her way up the vine-covered path; I situated myself in such a way as to be able to get up that path if I heard anything. While I waited, I thought some more about what I had done, I didn't feel good, but then I thought, "What the fuck! How would I feel if those bastards had got a hold of Emma? Snap out of it Dean! This is war; we're fighting for our lives, How about those poor people on that yacht?"

I continued to wait until it was almost dark, then decided that nobody was coming. Carefully I backed my self up the trail, only turning halfway up. When I entered the cave, I saw that Emma had been crying, sitting next to her, I put my arms around her and kissed her. "You did great Em, I'm proud of you!" This only made her cry more, Although I tried to find out what she was so upset about, she simply wouldn't say, but just continued to cry. At first, I thought she was mad at me, but then I realized it was something else. Eventually she stopped crying and just sat there in the darkness not saying anything. I didn't try and coax her but just waited patiently for her to open up.

When she finally spoke, it was to ask, "What did those men look like?" "I dunno," I replied, "Islanders, Jamaicans, Haitians, Christ who knows, Fuckin pirates is all I know…Why?" "Do you think they were the ones who killed those people on that yacht?" "Maybe, who's to say, come to think of it I held out the woman's ring and shined the flashlight on it. Emma slowly took the ring and looked at it. "They had this?" "One of them did…On a chain around his neck," She continued to gaze at the ring, turning it over, taking the flashlight, she shined it on the inner band, "Look, there's an inscription, "To Abby on our wedding day, Allen 2008." Emma continued to stare at the ring finally handing it back. "We must find the family and return this to them," she said in a low voice." "We will, Em, I promise." That night we barely ate anything and went to bed early, Emma kissed me once and lay back on the bed as I did, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

In the morning as I built a cook fire, I continued to study Emma, I couldn't put my finger on it, but something had changed, she had changed. She now seemed more driven, determined, focused, whatever you wanted to call it. She didn't say a word all through breakfast, then finally asked, "Could you teach me to shoot, I mean really shoot Dean?" I shrugged, Sure Em, got lots of ammo here, We…" "I want to learn to shoot one of the pistols too, you said that one was all mine." Looking at the .45 laying on a rock, I replied, "That's a pretty hefty gun for a girl to shoot, Dad has one and one time he let me shoot it, they've got a real badass kick to them." She suddenly turned and glared at me, "Think I can't shoot it, you guys all think alike, "Ooooh, she's just a girl, all she's good for is fucking!" I started to put my arms around her but Emma shoved them away.

"I'm sorry Em, of course I'll teach you to shoot it, but let's just start with the carbine first OK?" I was concerned that the sound of guns shooting would draw the rest of the pirates, so we moved along the cliffs towards the left of our camp, making sure we had a "back door" in case the other pirates showed up. Locating a good defensive position overlooking the ocean, I set up some crude targets, for Em to practice on. I began be showing her the proper way to hold the weapon, trigger squeeze, getting the right sighting picture, then repeating the process until she thoroughly understood what was going on . I even made her show me how to do things insuring that she had it all right. We covered proper gun safety, as I pounded home the facts of handling guns safely. Finally, I felt that she was ready; starting with the standing position, I had her shoot at my targets. For the rest of the afternoon she shot and shot, I think we went through a whole can of ammo, well over two hundred rounds. At the end of it all, she was consistently hitting her targets. I was always keeping a sharp eye out for any approaching pirates, but none came.

With only enough time to get back to our camp, I did a quick walk-thru on the .45, showing her proper stance, and how to shoot double handed. We only had time to go through two magazines before we had to leave. By the second magazine, Emma was hitting her target. Thank God, we had a flashlight, we got back to our cave just after dark, we would have never been able to make it up that path without it. Our meal consisted of the last two coconuts and coffee as well as a few sea grapes. As we sat waiting for the coffee to boil, I hugged Emma, and said, "You did great out there Em, I'm proud of you." She revealed a faint smile. And replied, "Can we go back to the lagoon tomorrow?" I shrugged, "We'll really have to be on our guard, no telling where the other pirates might be." Emma simply shrugged, "Fuck 'em," was all she said.

That night, I thought the "old" Emma was back, although I didn't fuck her, we did everything else, the old passion was back, or at least it seemed like it. She became very demanding both physically and sexually, driving both of us to new heights of passion, even in our lovemaking; I could tell she had changed.

I awoke the next morning to Em's calling, "Look, look out on the water!" Looking through a gap in the bamboo, I saw a boat slowly moving towards north, my heart soared for a moment, until I realized it was the pirate ship, the boat I saw the other day had a torn up Bimini top, this one did as well, and they were the same color. "That's the pirates, Em," I replied, "I wonder what they're up to?" Emma was crushed with the realization that danger was still out there, but then said, ""Let's get over to the lagoon; if they're out there we'll be safe for awhile." She had a point, and we really needed to get more fish. As we neared the lagoon I heard a rustling noise, cautioning Em to freeze, I took aim at where the noise was coming from. Suddenly a small heard of pigs burst through the undergrowth, I fired hitting one, causing it to roll, Emma fired as well hitting another, which dropped on the spot. The rest immediately scattered. We had just started to walk over to where our pigs lay, when I heard a shout, It was in French but I knew it was the pirates.

With only seconds to spare, Emma and I took positions behind some rocks in the prone position, sure enough two men cautiously emerged from the jungle holding AK's at the ready. Suddenly Emma shot dropping one man, I opened up killing the other, I indicated to Emma to remain where she was. Suddenly two more appeared on our left spotting us almost instantly, they opened fire, bullets splattering on the rock. Before they could retreat, both of us returned fire wounding one and killing the other. Emma was immediately on her feet sprinting towards the wounded man, who was screaming in pain. Upon reaching him, Emma immediately shot him twice in the head ending his cries of pain. I watched as she quickly went through his pockets, grabbing a wallet, as well as a bunch of crap out of his pockets. I then relived them of their weapons and spare magazines, as well as what looked like a two-way radio. Both of us then took hold of the larger of the pigs, and beat a hasty retreat back to our cave. Carrying all this loot, we almost fell trying to climb the narrow path. Once at the cave, I remained by the door watching down the path for any intruders, meanwhile Emma started going through the belongings taken off the pirates. ""Here," I said, "This is from the other day, I forgot I had it." Tossing her the wallet, I had taken off the first pirate she tore through it tossing dollar bills and Jamaican notes onto the bed. She then did the same with the other wallet, , "What are you looking for Em?" I asked. She didn't say anything at first, then only, "I'll know when I find it."

One of the items she threw down was a cell phone, I discovered that it was locked with a password, so it was of no use to us; still I threw it in the metal box I had recovered from the yacht. Emma then held up two joints and said, "Ever do weed? This is probably some primo Jamaican gange, wanna try one?" "Uh no Em, I'm not really into that shit, ya know?" She shrugged, and replied, "You don't know what you're missing, we could really get a good high and fuck each other's brains out, sure ya don't wanna try it?" "Um, maybe later." "Oh well suit yourself." She tossed the joints into the metal box. This was a side of Emma I simply couldn't imagine, lots of kids at school did grass, but even though I knew she ran with a pretty fast crowd, I never figured Emma had gotten into weed, what else was in store for me?' I took a little time to examine the three AK's we had recovered. All were pretty beat up. One of them was missing its front sight. Between the three, we had around 46 rounds about two magazines worth. In studying them closer, I discovered that they were full automatic, Emma watched me strip them down, then said, I want one!"

"You want one? Maybe I want one too, these guns are fully automatic, you'd go through a magazine in only a couple seconds. There's only enough ammo for two mags." "Tough, I want one." Something had happened to my Emma, she had changed, and I wasn't sure I liked the "new and improved" version.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

During this time of "discovery," I examined the two-way radio, at one point, a voice speaking in French came over the speaker, I didn't understand it but Emma said they were asking for Antwon, or Anton, something like that. I turned it off and went outside to dress out our pig. It was a messy and bloody job, but again Emma took me by surprise, she pitched right in holding the legs apart as I gutted it out letting the offal drop down the rocks. I told her about scraping the hide and rubbing the brains into it like the Indians used to do, again she was eager to try this, and the next day, I made a frame to stretch the skin out on. One of the items on my "To Do" lit was heading down to the beach somewhere , and boiling sea water down into salt, but the pirates were keeping things a little "hot" right now, another thing that would have to wait. I walked Emma through the process as I understood it , of scraping down the inside of the hide, using the broken off knife blade we found. Then the part I was a little unsure about, and that was "Tanning" the hide, by rubbing the animal's brains into the skin. It was buffalo brains that the Indians used, but if there was more to it than that, I wasn't aware of it. "Pig brains should work the same," I told Emma, "You dig 'em out of the skull," she replied, "And I'll try it tomorrow."

This was another puzzlement to me, most girls would have simply told me to "fuck off!" they weren't getting anywhere near something like that, Emma's reaction was very unusual, I had to find out what was going on with her, something wasn't right. Thankfully it was a rather small pig once it had been gutted out, the head cut off and skinned, our fire pit was in the cave, and anything large in the way of a fire filled the place up with smoke. The wind off the ocean blew straight into the cave opening, dispersing the smoke, and keeping it reasonably cool inside. Roasting the pig required a little larger fire, but it couldn't be helped, I fabricated a crude spit, so we could turn the animal, but it took the efforts of both of us most of the night to make sure the meat was cooking properly. When it was Emma's turn to keep the spit turning, I broke down the Ak's to give them a thorough cleaning. At Emma's insistence, I showed her how to field strip one. (actually I had never been near one before, I was flying by blind on this operation, but a little common sense, and knowledge of how guns generally worked, saw me through. I had read an article last year about how these things worked, and I remember a friend of my dad telling him that "AK47's are for third world villagers who have to be told not to shit in the water supply." I'm sitting here looking at one of these things and still don't know what he meant by that.

About all I knew, was that making sure all the carbon build-up was removed from the gas piston, and that the bore was reasonably clean. With the judicious use of sand, military bore cleaner and gun oil, I restored two of them to pretty decent shape. In working on the three weapons, I discovered the really beat up one had the best bore, one of them I could barely see any rifling. Anyway, I was able to "cannibalize" one for parts for the other two, leaving me a spare firing pin. And recoil spring. I had Emma put "her's" back together by herself , which with a little coaching, was able to do it.

We went most of the night turning that pig, I had actually seen it done, two years ago, my Uncle put on a pig roast on Labor Day, I was at his house most of the day, and remember him using one of those mobile roasters on wheels, of starting around eight in the morning , and not finishing until almost three in the afternoon. Of course, the hog was much larger, but that's basically all I had to go on. All things considered, I think we did pretty good, the meat was the proper color, it was certainly hot enough, if anything, we probably overcooked it a bit. The sad part was that since we didn't have refrigeration,

We couldn't save much, wrapping the leftovers in a plastic bag, and Kudsu leaves, we had enough for the next day, but the rest had to be thrown away. The meat was a little "gamy" but we were starved, and didn't let that bother us, we "pigged out" on pig, filling our stomachs with pork. Another thing that interested me, was the fact that in all the preparation and eating of this animal, I never heard one peep from Emma concerning her vegetarian preferences, guess when faced with reality, goofy stuff like that goes' right out the window.

The next day was spent in working with the AK's, eating pork, showing Emma how to, scrape the hide, eating pork, gathering more firewood, eating pork, deciding where we were going to go on our foraging trip, and finally, eating pork. We kept to the cliff side of the island, staying well away from the lagoon area, and the general direction of our first camp. Although each of us carried an AK, I brought my .45, as well as a carbine, in case the AK jammed or something. When I was sure, we were well away from possible intruders, I let Emma fire a few rounds to familiarize her with the weapon's operation,

We gathered kudzu leave, vine, and a couple plants that had interesting looking fruit. More coconuts, sea grapes, and Geiger fruit was gathered, we even spotted a banana tree, with green banana's, but the tree was too tall, and I wasn't going to try and climb it. If the banana's had been riper, I might have tried shooting a one of the "bunches" to bring it down, but we made a note of where the tree was, with the idea of coming back later.

Eventually, we crossed paths with the river feeding the waterfall at the lagoon. I didn't see any fish to spear, so I decided to wait until we returned to the lagoon. As we were starting back towards our cave, Emma spotted something further in the jungle, upon closer examination, we discovered it was an old fighter plane that had apparently crashed in the jungle years ago, it was all covered with growth, but a little effort brought us a few items of salvage. The plane appeared to have belonged to the Cuban Air Force, making me think we were on an island claimed by Cuba, or awful close to the main island. Unfortunately, I had no real tools to pry anything off, we did come away with some pieces of Plexiglas, some pieces of aluminum I thought I could make a fry pan out of, as well as a spatula. More odds and ends of metal, but that was basically it. There was no skeleton in the cockpit, so I assumed that the pilot walked away.

We got back to our cave around dusk, making sure, nobody was "waiting" for us, I made coffee, and both of us took a "break" from the pig, and ate a couple coconuts and some grapes. Around one or two a.m. (I was guessing) I got up to take a leak, looking out the door as I always do, I gasped, when I saw a dark form out on the water, it appeared to be a ship, and not a pleasure craft. I called Emma to see it for herself. "Why aren't there any lights on it?" she asked. "Don't know Em, but for the size of that thing, I'm betting it's a navy ship, question is…Whose navy? This close to shore, it would seem to me that they should have their running lights on, wait! Look. They're shining a spotlight on the shore." Sure enough, the only light from the ship was a spotlight near where the bridge must be. We crouched down, but the light never came up to our height. The ship continued to move to the north side of the island, all the while shining it's spotlight on the shore.

I didn't like this at all, what if they mounted an expedition on the island and weren't friendly? I began to discuss with Emma about having to leave this cave if they proved to be unfriendly. Emma on the other hand, suggested signaling them and then we could be rescued.. "Consider this Em," I said. "What if that ship is part of the Cuban navy, I think we're closer to Cuba than I first thought."

"So," she replied, "All we'd have to do is explain to them that our plane crashed, and that we swam to this island, simple." I frowned, "Uh huh, just tell them we crashed in the water, where's the friggen plane Em, Just 'cause JZ and Beyoncé travel to Cuba and hobnob with all the good folks there, doesn't mean we'd get the same treatment. More than likely, you'd end up in a Cuban Whore house, and I'd be looking at prison for the rest of my life. Sorry Em, no go! But tomorrow, we'll go see what they're up to anyway.

Around dawn we heard what they were "up to." Stepping out of our cave, to look around, I heard gunfire, and lot's of it coning from the other side of the island, towards where our first camp was. Soon I heard heavy machine gun fire as well. Emma came out as well to listen, "What's going on?

She asked. "Somebody's getting a real ass whupping," I replied. "Maybe it's those pirates, I hope so anyway."

We finished off the last of the meat, and drank quick cups of coffee, "geared up," and headed for our old camp. We had to pass by the Lagoon on our way, but as we did, an ungodly stench greeted our noses. Emma lost her breakfast completely when we passed near the bodies of the men we had killed earlier. Putting rags over our noses lessened the smell, but besides being bloated up, the bodies appeared to have been partially eaten. Taking a chance on loosing my breakfast as well, I took a closer look, I realized what had done this. Moving upwind of the smell, I answered Em's question with, "Ever see the HBO series Deadwood?" She shook her head. "The bad guy used to get rid of bodies by taking them to a Chinese guy who had a couple hogs who ate them. Ever hear the expression, Where did so-and-so go? He went to shit and the hogs ate him. Speaking for myself, I'm off the pig as of this moment Em!" She was horrified with what I told her, swearing to eat pork no more.

We didn't approach the beach near our first camp, but moved up the coast staying in the jungle, ever vigilant for signs of movement or people talking. I showed Em how to make "Ghillie" suits from vines and large leaves, sneaking up to a stand of palms, we were able to view the action. I sure wish I had a pair of binoculars, I could get a better look at that ship." I whispered to Emma. I saw a flag flying on the fantail, and although I couldn't make it out, I knew it wasn't American. The pirate ship was also out there closer to shore, and there was a small boat coming to shore. I was afraid to move any closer, for fear of detection, but I could tell what was going on more or less.

When the small boat reached shore, we saw four men being forced out by what appeared to be sailors in uniform. The men were forced to walk up towards the tree line by the sailors who had guns pointed at them. There seemed to be two men standing apart from the group pointing towards the jungle, they were shouting something, but we couldn't hear them. We did hear the burst of automatic weapons fire shortly after the sailors entered the jungle behind the four men, then return alone after the shooting. Everybody then piled into the small boat and headed out to the large ship. About half an hour after everybody was back aboard, the large ship began to shoot at the pirate ship ripping into the hull at the water line. We watched as the ship proceeded to come our way, and when it was parallel to us and a bit closer, I got a better look at the flag, it was definitely Cuban.

We waited until the ship was far enough away, then stayed inside the tree line back to where the shooting had taken place. Four men, obviously pirates lay face down on the jungle floor, all shot in the back..


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

We looked at the dead men lying in the weeds and grass, then Emma slung her weapon, and did something I never would have believed. I watched as she proceeded to pull the camouflage trousers off one of the pirates with a look of determination that concerned me. I swear I had read an article in one of those psych magazines in the counselors office about this kind of behavior. Em was changing before my eyes, but I couldn't give you a definite example of her behavior. All I knew, was that that steely-eyed look on her face was one I didn't want to mess with.

Then again, maybe I was over reacting, after all, if I was playing Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas, I'd be ripping those tiger stripes off that guy as well. Cool looking set they were too. Now how about this other guy? Got a nice pair of Adidas running shoes on, he certainly won't be needing them anymore.

Once we were done there, my attention was drawn to that pirate boat wallowing in the surf, "Think we could reach it before she goes down I asked Emma. "Let's try it," she replied. We stripped down to nothing, and hid our weapons and gear under our "Ghillie" suits and sprinted towards the surf. It took us about fifteen minutes to make the swim, the swim deck was under water when we climbed up over the transom. "I figure we've got less than ten minutes, before this boat goes under, let's move." I dumped out a large cooler that was floating around, and used it to throw our "treasure" in. I hit "pay dirt" right off the bat, a pair of Zeiss binoculars, man! I sure could have used these earlier. I grabbed four flotation cushions and punched holes in them passing rope through them to make a crude raft. Emma as busy as well grabbing up anything that looked interesting. Three pair of sunglasses cans of beans and franks, tuna, beef stew and chili. I found a glass jar of roasted coffee beans, as well as a crowbar, a small bag of tools, and an axe.

I heard Em squeal, when I looked, she was scooping up something but I couldn't tell what it was. A tin box of jewelry, and a couple watches went into the cooler. Em tossed me two boxes of AK ammo, 7.62x39, as well as some gun oil. Another flashlight, along with a small radio, a gallon can of kerosene and another lantern, a hunting knife as well as Two bottles of Cuban rum also found their way into my "goodie" chest. A couple naval charts made up the last of it, "Em! We're outta here, this boat is going down, let's go!" We pushed off the transom, which was now under water, and pushed and kicked the flotation pads with the cooler on top back towards the beach.

This time we were able to ride the surf to a degree but still the effort was wearing us out fast. Taking short breaks, we slowly got closer to shore, but when we did, both of us were "dead." It was like the first time, as we lay there in exhaustion, letting the surf push our bodies into the beach. Finally, we recovered enough to stagger further onshore, dragging our "raft." Turning around the pirate boat had now disappeared under the water. After retrieving our weapons and clothes, I cut two long poles of bamboo, and we carried the cooler as well as the flotation pads back to our cave like a stretcher.

It was dark when we got back, having to stop every so often to rest. Climbing the path in the dark was extremely tricky, but we managed it. We opened the can of tuna, and ate it along with some sea grapes. I thought I'd take another look at the binoculars I found, fishing around in the cooler, I held them up for Emma to see. "Aside from our weapons, these binoculars are probably the most valuable thing we have," I announced. Emma grinned, and slowly shook her head, holding her hand up in the dim light of the cave; she opened it and said, "No silly, these are!"

In her hand were several foil packets, as tired as I was, I knew this boy wasn't getting any sleep tonight. We "warmed up" for the "game" with the rum. Then Em lit one of her joints. Christ! There were "bombs" bursting in air all right. Then it was "Play Ball!" Jeezest, could this chick fuck! She turned me every which way but loose. When you ride the tiger, you damn sure don't jump off. When I woke up sprawled out on the cave floor in the morning, all I could think was, "Rum and grass…Breakfast of champions!" They say you always remember your first time, well, I knew I would remember this for the rest of my life. After a brief "rest stop" of coconuts and coffee, it was time for "round two."

It was much later in the afternoon when we finally "recovered" from our second "go round." I needed to gather some firewood before it got dark, so taking my newfound axe; I headed down the path on a wood cutting expedition. Emma's incredible lovemaking was all I could think of, plus trying to figure out where she learned some of her "special" talents. There was certainly no doubt about it now, we were both deeply in love, our lives were now linked, little did I realize that the first "test" was about to occur.

I returned to the cave to find Em down on the floor sobbing uncontrollably, the contents of the tin box scattered all over the floor .She seemed to be clutching something in her hand. Rushing to her side, I attempted to comfort her, but she rejected my attempt. "What's the matter Em, what's wrong?" She continues to cry miserably. Then in a voice cracking with emotion, she said, "They killed her, the fucking bastards killed them all!" "What are you talking about Em?" I asked. Opening her hand, I saw a charm necklace just like the one she was wearing. "Just before we moved, Tracy and I exchanged necklaces; see the "T" on mine, and the "E" on this one. We worked all summer when we were fourteen, painting her house, her dad paid us to do it. After that, we got to be pretty close, then last year my family moved to where we are now, but just before we left, Tracy and I traded neck charms, now she's dead, that boat down on the beach was their's"

She burst into another bout of crying, then pounding the floor, and screaming, I tried to stop her, but she just cried and screamed even more, seeing that there was nothing I could do, I simply sat in a corner and watched until her screaming and crying subsided. After awhile she was so emotionally spent, she simply collapsed on the floor; I carefully picked her up and placed her on a couple of the flotation pads we brought back. She slept until almost ten the next morning, I on the other hand, didn't sleep a wink, my Em was hurting and there wasn't a goddamned thing I could do about it.

For the next three weeks, Emma descended into a black pit of depression so severe I thought I would loose her completely. I remained at her side constantly, I was afraid to go out for any length of time by myself to hunt or fish for fear of returning to find that she had committed suicide. As a result, we went through our entire supply of canned food I was saving for emergencies, eating cooked kudzu leaves in the end. At one point, Em started to drink until I was forced to hide the rum. She would snap at me, blame me for her friends death, which only brought on horrific shouting matches. She refused to make love, and often times wouldn't even sleep next to me. Eventually she began to just sit in the cave entrance and just stare out at the ocean.

During this whole time, I was going out of my mind, I was only a kid, what could I do? I was able to get her to open up a little more about Tracy and her family but always it would just degenerate into more bouts of crying. I was beside myself with worry over Em; she wasn't eating properly, and refused to leave the cave. I'm not a real religious person but I'd go into the jungle, fall on my knees and pray as hard as I could. "Oh please dear God, give me my Emma back!" As dark as things were for her they went double for me, because I could see two lives slowly wasting away. By the end of the third week, I knew we couldn't last much longer, we were barely eating, we had stopped going to the lagoon to bath, I thought I'd give it one more shot.

I was able to coax her to go with me down to the smaller beach on the east side of the island, a little over a mile from our cave. We arrived around dusk, and just sat on the beach, in the moonlight, looking up at the star filled night sky, listening to the waves lap on the beach. For a long time we said nothing, finally, I began to talk; I talked about whatever came to mind, our lives, her friend Tracy, the pirates, kids at school, anything. Eventually I ran out of things to talk about, in all this time Emma said not a word, I didn't know whether anything I had said had gotten through, but I must have fallen asleep at some point.

It must have been a dream, it had to have been, I remember waking to find that Em had gotten up. I looked out to see her standing at the shoreline. The moon had gone down, and I couldn't tell what she was doing, at first, I thought she was going to drown herself, but I simply couldn't get up, I tried calling to her but I couldn't speak. Looking closer into the darkness, it looked like there was another girl standing next to her, but I thought that my eyes were playing tricks on me. The next thing I remember is waking up again, only dawn was coming up over the ocean. Emma was sitting at the waters edge just staring out to sea. I was able to get up this time, so I walked up to her and sat down, not saying a word. Finally Emma turned to me and said, "I'm hungry, let's get something to eat."

I hugged her, I cried I laughed, I prayed "Thanks" to God, we had finally turned the corner, from this point, I knew my Em would be all right. Slowly but surely, things returned to normal, or as normal as anything could be stranded on an island like this. Emma's appetite increased, and while she remained in a somber mood, I found I could get her to laugh from time to time. We never spoke of that night on the beach, or of my seeing what looked like another girl, some things are just too private. It was another two weeks before Em was back to her "old" self, our swims in the lagoon resumed, as well as our lovemaking. When we were down to one condom, Emma said, "Let's save this for when we get rescued, something really special OK? I kissed her and agreed to the deal, but all the while doubting our chances.

A few days later, after we returned from swimming and fishing in the lagoon, Emma made me wait outside the cave entrance. After a few minutes, she stepped outside, "Well, how do I look?" she said. "Like the queen of the guerrilla fighters," I replied. Looking both sexy and tough, she was outfitted in black sneakers, tiger stripe cargo pants she had cut down to a pair of Capri pants. In addition, she wore a black bikini top, as well as a black bandana wrapped over her head. This was her "New" look capped off with a pair of Foster Grants from the pirate boat, and an AK47 slung over her shoulder. It's a good thing I'm not superstitious, everything she had on came off a dead person.

Even though she seemed to have returned to normal, I suspected otherwise, I never said anything, but I always watched her. Again. It was nothing I could really put my finger on, but life on this island had changed her somehow, as to whether it was good or bad, the jury was still out on that one.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

During Em's recovery period, I made several "improvements" to our home. Returning to the crashed aircraft, I managed to cut several pieces of thin aluminum with a hack saw out of the little tool kit off the pirate boat. I also cut a piece that I was able to turn into a chair. Since we had eaten all our canned food, including the bacon, it was mainly fish coconuts and finally bananas. I managed to shoot down a ripe bunch eating bananas until we got sick of them. I had been right about suspecting goats on the island, I was able to shoot one, and using the oven I had fabricated from pieces of the airplane, we ate goat meat for awhile.

We entered a period of time Emma and I think of when we reminisce about our time on the island. Em was back to her "old" self, I had perfected my hunting and fishing skills, our cooking skills improving right along with it. We had the island all to ourselves, we could roam at will, swim and make love whenever we wanted, but more than anything else, we simply drew closer, we had come through the crucible together, and had passed the "test."

We resumed our beachcombing, finding items such as a panel to a "porta-john," as well as pieces of lumber, I used them to finally make a decent door for our cave. We found three or four life jackets, using them as "pillows" for the time being. We were always finding plastic containers of all kinds, containing everything from laundry detergent, to motor and cooking oil. After awhile, we had a decent supply of laundry soap as well as motor oil, which I used on the guns. However, Em and I got disgusted at the general "slobbery" of people just throwing their trash overboard, or into the ocean, most of it seemed to be washing up on our island. We found a couple straw mats, which made things much nicer in the cave.

It was also during this period that Em perfected her weaving technique, once she started feeling better, she resumed trying to remember how she had done it years before. Finally, after a lot of practice, It all came back to her, allowing her to fashion a couple "hat's for us, ones that allowed us to stick leaves and vines into in case we needed to hide.

Often times in the evening, we would listen to the little radio recovered from the pirate boat. We would pick up stations from Georgetown in the Cayman's, a French station from Port-au-Prince, a reggae station from Kingston. Even though I was pretty sure we weren't that far away, we could never pick up anything out of Kingston Jamaica long enough to catch any news of search and rescue attempts being made looking for us. One time we even listened to a station out of Panama, as well as one from Caracas. However, the one that came in the loudest was the "Blowtorch of the Caribbean" Radio Havana.

Mot of the time all you could get were re-cycled speeches from Fidel, and more current stuff from his brother Raul. My Spanish wasn't so good, but Em said the speeches were boring and all were diatribes against the US, blaming us for Cuba's ills. However, if we caught it right, they played Latin dance music, so for an hour or so, usually on Saturday nights, I would ask my prom queen for the first dance. Even though we didn't know a Mambo from a Samba, she would always accept my offer, slide into my arms, and away we would go.

One evening when we were fiddling with the radio, trying to get something decent to come in, Em asked me, "Dean, we haven't really discussed this before, but do you have any idea of where we really are?" I looked at her and sighed, "Not the foggiest fucking notion Em."

"This might not be a bad time to try and figure it out," I continued. "The fact of that ship snooping around here makes me think we're fairly close to Cuba. Now when we left out of Kingston, we were heading in a southeasterly direction, and we had been flying for roughly twenty minutes or so before that bird hit us. I thought we were going into a dive, but with everybody screaming and yelling it's hard to remember."

"Well I certainly remember being shoved up against the door," said Emma. "In fact, I was afraid the door would pop open, I remember shoving back against Torrey 'cause she was pushing on me."

"Waite a minute," I said. "You were up against the right rear door, and you claim you were being pushed against it? She nodded. "That means we must have been turning left. I'll bet the pilot was trying to put us back on a reverse course towards Kingston when he died; Mr. Christiansen was screwing around up there, trying to keep the pilot alive or something. Maybe he knocked us further west than the pilot was trying to take us before he died. This naval chart I found on the pirate boat is probably this island no name, just a number, and no other islands on it to give us an idea of where we really are." I said.

Looking at the island chart for any clues, I said. "I'm guessing Jamaica is off to our northeast, Haiti and Santo Domingo are basically due east from here, and Nicaragua is off to our west, man, I sure wish I had a decent compass." "What about that airplane wreck,? Asked Em. Shaking my head, I replied, "It would have been electrically powered," I replied. "besides, it's a different kind. I don't know," I continued, "maybe I can make one ?" Eventually I was able to fabricate one, but it really didn't help much, but at least we had one.

About a day after I got the new door up another storm slammed into the island. By this time, we were snug and cozy in our cave, Em and I just stayed in bed and cuddled, listening to the storm lash away outside. From time to time I'd get up to start another water jug, catching rainwater from a fissure in the cave wall, then crawl back into bed with my prom queen, man! This certainly was "our" time.

About three days after the storm, we came across a beached speed boat that must have broken loose from it's slip. The boat had Jamaican registry, so the prevailing currants must have brought it this way. Unfortunately, the storm must have ripped the motor off, as the transom was all chewed up. With nothing better to do, Em and I spent the day bailing the boat out, moving it a little further up on the beach, and covering it with a large sheet of plastic that had washed up earlier. We were rewarded for our efforts by finding half a bottle of hot sauce in the glove box as well as some fish hooks and tackle; this went a long way in speeding up my fishing operation.

Three months had now come and gone since we crawled up on the beach, Emma was starting to loose hope that we would ever get off the island, she worried about all this time out of school messing up her chances to go to Princeton, as well as her "social" life. "Have patience prom queen," I told her, our chance will come, and when it does, it will come fast, so just be ready." Two days later, she dragged me out of a deep sleep with, "C'mon, get up Dean, we've got to go!" Trying to open my eyes, I simply said, "For what? Where are we going? "Just get up, gear up and let's go, NOW!" Soon she was leading me over to the west side of the island again, all my questions about why this was so important, and what did she expect to find, went unanswered, until we approached the beach. Looking out, I spotted what looked like a large fishing boat next to a sleek 40-foot yacht. Scanning it with my binoculars, I said to Em, "Its fuckin pirates again, looks like they've got hostages, and two small boats are heading towards shore." "It's happening all over again," she gasped; we've got to stop them." "Agreed Em," I replied, but how?"

Studying the approaching boats, I could see what looked like a man an older woman and a teenage girl, "Oh Christ!" I thought, Not this again?" "Listen Em," I said, "you cut through the jungle, swing around the beach to that point of palms over there, be careful and get ready, maybe we can catch them in a crossfire, wait until I start shooting, but please be careful, and don't' shoot if those hostages are in your line of fire." Em took off running as I got in a better position, crawling as close as I dared, pulling my "Ghillie" suit over me a little more I got in position to fire.

The two boats finally landed, and the three people were forced out of one of the boats, I could see that hey had their hands tied behind their backs as their captors shoved and pushed them further up the beach toward the tree line, I could hear shouting as well as see that the woman and girl were crying. I prepared to shoot, but they were in my line of fire. There were nine or ten pirates standing behind them. "Dam!" I thought; Get the fuck out of the way." Suddenly something caught my eye; it was Em standing up under the point of palms completely naked! She waved at the men and must have said something, because they all started moving towards her. Once the last man moved away from the hostages, I opened fire, I saw Emma suddenly drop, at first I thought I must have hit her, but a second later, she came up firing at them as well. I dumped a full magazine on them dropping five Emma's burst hit another three. As soon as my gun was empty, I picked up my carbine, stood up and started picking off the survivors.

Our fire completely caught them by surprise, one man was able to get off a short burst towards Em but he went down under my carbine fire. One of the men then jumped up and started running for the boats, but I dropped him as well, although not by a clean shot, I watched as he fell, and began to writhe on the beach. Running up on the scene I put rounds into a couple bodies that looked like they were still moving, I ran over to the man who was screaming and holding his stomach. No doubt, about it he was gut shot, Emma came running up still naked, and simply stared at the man, a blank expression on her face. He was screaming something in Spanish, but I could tell he was pleading for us to help him. Emma bent down and said something in Spanish to him, stood up and walked back to where her clothes were. I shrugged and then walked over to where the hostages were tied up.

As the pirate screamed and rolled around in the sand, I untied the people, Emma finally walked up and squatted down in front of the girl. "We won't hurt you, we're here to help," she said, and she hugged the girl who finally stopped crying. "Thank God you came along when you did," said the man. "My name is Harold Crain, this is my wife Renee, and our daughter Stacy, they were going to make me watch as they raped my wife and daughter to death," He then broke down and started crying, once he and his wife were free of their bindings, they stood up and hugged. Our pirate was still making a racket out on the beach, so I said to Em, "Want me to put him out of his misery" indicating the pirate. She simply shook her head, "Why waste the ammunition, considering what he was going to do to these people, putting him out of his misery is too good for him, he'll be dead pretty soon.

We offered water and pieces of coconut to the three people, Mr. Crain kept looking at the dying pirate, and said, "Do you mind?" I shrugged, and replied, "Not at all." With that, he got up and walked out to where the pirate had rolled over, and was trying to crawl to the surf leaving a bloody trail in the sand, like some giant wounded crab or something. Mr. Crain stood over the pirate for a moment, then reached down, picked the man up by his head, and gave it a swift twist, dropping the body back down in the sand. The pirate lay still, peace and quiet returning to our beach.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

I invited the Crain's to move farther up the beach to get away from the dead pirates. While they were doing that, I grabbed up the pirates weapons; three AK is a shotgun, a rusty bolt-action rifle, and a couple pistols. I also relieved them of the contents of their pockets, being an avid "gamer" you always did that whenever you shot anyone. I collected boat keys, some loose change, the joints and coke I left with them; all told, I scarfed up fifty dollars in Jamaican and US money. When I re-joined the Crain's, Emma was sitting with them telling of how we came to this island.

"You two saved our lives," said Mr. Crain, we would be most honored to return you back to your families, originally we sailed from Georgetown in the Cayman's, the pirates tricked us with a ruse, claiming to be fisherman with a dying man on board, when we got near, we were suddenly boarded and overcome." "Are there anymore out there?" I asked. Crain shook his head, "No, thank God! They were hopped up on dope and alcohol, according to the captain; they were really going to have a party." At that point, Mrs. Crain started crying, until Mr. Crain had to comfort her. "Which one is the captain?" I asked. "That guy with the Jimmy Buffet Parrot head, shirt on." He was the one with the keys, the Parrot head shirt now soaked with blood.

"We'll be heading back to Georgetown," said Mr. Crain, but if you like we could take you to Kingston." "If you don't mind," I replied. Then I had a thought, Mr. Crain could I ask a favor of you, it might be kinda dangerous, but I'd really appreciate it." "What is it son," he replied. "Uh well, Emma and I found a cave that had apparently been used to store a bunch of rifles, M1 carbines and .45 caliber Colt auto's in. I think it dates back to the Bay of Pigs days, maybe the CIA hid them there, but maybe someone else did. Anyway, they've been there for a long time. They're no doubt worth a lot of money. I would like to sell them, save for a carbine and a pistol, and split the money with Emma, and use it for college." "How many guns are we talking about," asked Mr. Crain.

"Let's see, there's twelve carbines, and six Colt Auto's plus these AK's but since they're all full auto weapons, I can't legally deal with them, although if I could get this one back I'd hang onto it."

"They're pretty tough on gunrunning in these islands," observed Mr. Crain, "Especially the Bahamas, and the Virgin Islands, but considering what you two did for us, I think I might be able to help. I have a friend, you see…"

We all ended up taking one of the small boats out to the Crain's yacht, which the pirates had started to trash. While Emma helped Mrs. Crain and her daughter, clean things up, Mr. Crain and I went over to the pirates "fishing boat" to look for the belongings and property that the pirates had stolen from the Crain's. We recovered all the money as well as food and clothing they had taken, along with jewelry. I found a pair of tiger stripes like Em had as well as a black tee shirt, and "boonie" hat. When we were finished, Mr. Crain dumped a can of diesel fuel below decks and just before, we boarded the small boat, tossed a torch down there. Halfway back to the yacht we watched as flames started roaring up from below. By the time we were back aboard the yacht, the pirate boat was completely on fire.

Mr. Crain told us it would be a little bit before he could leave, but I told him, "We've got to go get those guns, as well as take care of a few other things, there's a small beach on the east side of the island, well meet you there, as you sail past our cave, which is on a sort of cliff, I'll fire a signal flare into the air, you should see us all right. We will then meet you down at the beach."

Mr. Crain took Emma and I back to the island, where we quickly headed back to our cave. As we passed the lagoon, I stopped. Turning to Em, I said, "How 'bout it prom queen, one more time, we'll make it a "quickie" OK? She smiled as both of us took off our clothes and held hands as we waded out into the blue water. Standing under the waterfall, we held each other close, and kissed. Although we were glad to be leaving the island, both of us were sad at having to leave the lagoon. Many happy moments were spent here, as well as memories made. We were "under the gun," as far as time went, but we made the few minutes we spent locked in a lover's embrace, seem like an hour.

Climbing the path for the last time, I spotted the Crain's yacht coming into view. Once he was a little closer, I fired the flare pistol into the air. I saw them wave through my binoculars. Quickly Em and I grabbed the stuff we had planned to take with us. I left four of the Pirates AK's as well as the pistols and ammunition on a shelf in the cave. We stuffed the blankets and other bedding into the cooler to protect it from mice. Both of us had decided to do this for the "next" castaways who might find themselves on this island. As we stood in our "home," Emma and I stopped to take one last look around. We were happy to be leaving, but at the same time, we felt sad thinking of all the memories created in this cave. Everything had been "tidied" up and the weapons placed where they wouldn't get ruined with rust. "Take a good look around Em," I said, we'll be thinking of this place for the rest of our lives." I made sure the door was closed tightly, as well as the vines we had tied aside were back over the entrance. Both of us then said goodbye to our former "home" and headed for the beach. We carried several weapons over our shoulders, with the rest tightly rolled up in a plastic sheet around a long pole, which made it easier to carry all of them at once.

Mr. Crain was waiting for us, and helped to stow all our stuff in the boat. As we headed out to the yacht, both Emma and I kept our eyes fixed on the island. Mr. Crain and I stripped down all the guns for easier "hiding" on the boat, in places behind the paneling, and under the floor. He had offered to buy a carbine as well as a pistol to keep on the yacht and said he would cut me a check for $3500.00 dollars when we reached Georgetown. While we sat and talked Emma spent time with Stacy, who was still shaken up by what had almost happened to them.

That night as Emma and I lay in bed, (the Crain's said nothing about it) I said to her, "Well prom queen, vacations over, back to the "grind" looking sad, she only nodded. "Mom's going to be all over me asking about what we did all this time, my sister as well." "That's another thing," I said. "I don't know what your thoughts are about it, but I like my privacy, and except for the obvious fact that we love each other, I figure what happened on that island stays on that island. I'm sure we're going to be bombarded by reporters and other professional "snoops" wanting to know what went on for three months, but I have no intention of saying anything." "Not even to your dad?" she asked. I shrugged, "If he asks I suppose, I asked Mr. Crain not to mention anything other than the part about us shooting the pirates, can't avoid that I suppose. But, I told him some other stuff we did, but asked him to keep that part quiet

"Are you going to say anything to your friends?" she asked. I guffawed, "Fuck no, like I told you, what we did on that island was private, strictly between you and I, now I can't tell you what to say to your friends, but I'm not saying a word." We then put our arms around each other and hugged each other, Emma then whispered, "Wouldn't you call this a special occasion?" I looked into her eyes, "Yeah, probably the best, why?" She held up a single foil packet, and giggled, "Remember what I said about saving the last one?" "You're incredible prom queen," I whispered, as I turned off the wall lamp.

We arrived in Kingston the next day, calls home brought immediate response. Apparently, my dad and Emma's mom had spent considerable time down here looking for us, but eventually the search was called off. We were declared, "lost at sea as were the others, the aircraft having never been found save for a little wreckage. Dad had even spent his own money on hiring a private helicopter to search, but he had work obligations to deal with so last month both had given up and returned home.

Our parents purchased airline tickets home, but while we were waiting for the flight to leave, I talked with the Crain's who thanked up once again for saving their lives. Mr. Crain assured me that he's take care of our "treasure." I'll see that you receive the carbine the AK and the .45 by Fed-Ex, as for the rest, I'll see that you two get a nice check. I gave him my e-mail address as well as street address, and shook his hand one last time.

In a lot of ways, I felt like a soldier returning home from a war. There was the feeling of having done something grand, and life changing, the crowd waiting for us when we arrived back in Detroit, the TV cameras, the hugs from my dad, I didn't get much time with Emma after that, as she was soon swept up with her family and friends. It looked like we would have to make up the three months of school we missed, plus a lot of other bullshit that goes along with suddenly showing up after being declared "dead." Emma's mom threw a homecoming party, and although I went to it, I barely got a moment with her. I ended up talking with her sister more than Emma, her mom acted a bit cool towards me, and as predicted, my friends wanted to know all the "lurid" details of life on a deserted island with a girl like Emma. When I wouldn't tell them anything, they soon grew bored and left me alone. Dad didn't really ask me anything about what we did on the island, so I had no cause to tell him. Emma later told me her mom just kept giving her this pitiful looks but asked her nothing as well, probably afraid to.

A week later, for the next three days I got a large package from Fed-Ex, first the carbine, then the .45 and finally the AK, which I immediately hid in the garage. I also got an e-mail from Mr. Crain telling me his collector friend went wild with excitement when he saw what I had found. I received a letter a few days later from a Mr. Alexander telling me about the weapons I had found. There were eight Winchester's among the "collection, "including mine, apparently highly sought after. Some of the others were made by Rock-Ola, the jukebox manufacturer all the weapons were late WW2 manufacture, with matching serial numbered parts. He went into a lot more detail about my "find" and promised a nice check out of it. Just when I started to wonder I I was being "ripped off," A registered letter arrived containing a certified check for $13,600.00 I almost fell on the floor. When dad came home that evening, I showed him the check and said, "Dad, we need to talk."

I told him only what he needed to know, obviously I had to mention the pirates, Mr. Crain had told the press about our having rescued them, but I got the impression people thought we merely chased them away. I didn't go into all the gory details, but I always thought dad suspected more, but just didn't want to go down that road. A couple days later at school, I caught Emma at lunch surrounded by her bitchy friends who gave me the stink eye for daring to approach them, and handed Emma a check for her share of the gun sales. When she saw how much it was, she tried to stop me, but by then I was down the hall. After that, I got a couple calls from her but didn't answer, after awhile the calls and tweets stopped.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

In many ways I felt like those guys that return from the war who were living life to the fullest, then return to an indifferent family. In a way I wanted to tell my dad about everything we did on the island, but he seemed content just not to know. He was concerned that I wanted to keep the carbine and .45, but in the end didn't put up much of a fight. School was just as boring and silly as before, only this time things my friends thought important seemed so trivial. I had survived for three months on an island, shot and killed animals and people, seen death close up, well all this shit in school seemed such a let down. I saw Emma every day in class and school, we even had the same make-up classes after regular school hours and on Saturdays. Most of the time she was with her friends, that Helen, now there was a piece of work! I caught Emma looking at me all the time, and a couple times she acted like she wanted to talk, but her social life swirled up around her and life moved on.

After awhile I started to think that what I thought we had on the island was nothing more than an illusion, two strangers thrown together, a "wartime" romance as it were, I wasn't sure of her feelings, but then I started thinking, I gave it just one more shot when she was in her funk, maybe our relationship, if you could now call it that, needed just one more start as well.

The prom was on for tonight, And I was lying on the couch watching a hockey game feeling sorry for myself as usual, dad came in and said, "Going to the dance tonight?" I looked at him and said, "Meh," "You can use my tux," was the reply, I thought about it for a moment, then thought "Aw fuck! Why not, maybe this is the "one more shot" I was thinking about.

Of course, it was raining like cats and dogs I arrived at the school, and since I didn't have a ticket, I walked around in back to the courtyard in the damn rain soaking my dad's tux. I stood out there in the rain like an idiot, but then something wonderful happened, my prom queen appeared at the door, and stood there looking at me for a moment. I beckoned her to come out, and to my surprise, she did. Now it was two fools standing in the rain, people started to collect at the door and windows as we slowly started to dance in the rain, we didn't say much, three months on an island together, we didn't need to speak; our eyes said everything we needed to say. Slowly our lips met, as we slowly moved around. "Welcome home prom queen" I whispered in her ear, she just sighed, as we danced and the rain fell.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

YOU ASKED FOR IT "A" SO HERE IT IS, THIS ONE'S FOR YOU

We caused quite a stir with our dancing in the rain act. But were quickly ushered inside to dry off. While this was going on, I noticed a funny thing, whenever I get near her, her goofy friends like Helen, Amanda and Lily run interference for her, but not at her request, the word is that they're trying to hook her up with Steve Sullivan the football jock. Guys like him are a real pain in the ass, but you have to deal with them. Anyway, this time Emma ignored them and stuck by me, I could see the malice in their faces towards me but I just laughed. "Ladies, get used to it Emma and I share a bond, a bond you guys will never break." Turning to Emma I took her in my arms and softly said, "I should never have doubted you Em, I know others were trying to steer you in a different direction, but I love you too much to ever let you go." We hugged each other tightly as her friends finally realized their attempts to set her up with another were useless, and one by one smiled at me for the first time.

As things turned out, Emma's friends were a little off target as far as their "hot pick" of the week was for Emma. I thought Steve would start giving me a lot of shit about "muscling" in on "his" girl. but as the days went by he never said a word, crisis averted, although word on the street was that he was diddling Amanda one of Emma's girl "gang" chums, It sure didn't take him long to go where the grass was greener.

Although the kids at school had now come to realize that our love was here to stay, dealing with her mother was a bit more delicate. Dad had made some offhand comments about her concerning the time both were down in Trinidad looking for us. Knowing that Em and I had patched up our differences (were there that many?) He hinted that her mother was somewhat of a domineering bitch, and that I might run into "heavy seas" in dealing with her.

In the beginning, right after we turned up missing, all she knew was that her precious daughter had gone missing with practically a high school dropout. I had been suspended, and reprimanded and was definitely at the top of the "bad boy" list, because after mom had died, I was going through a rough time. Anyway, her ideas about me apparently lessoned once she met dad, and realized he was an OK guy. Dad also hinted that she also came around to reality after he sprung for the helicopter searches. The shit really hit the fan later on when Emma decided that the University of Michigan was just as good or even better than Princeton, but I'm getting ahead of the story.

I had already met her folks at the homecoming party her mother threw, her dad was nice enough but I could tell right away, he was the kind who preferred not to make waves, for fear of stirring up "Momma." Emma's mother was one of those "super mom" types who spend all their time planning their children's futures whether the child wants it or not. Emma told me right off the bat "Never bring me home or even pick me up on your motorcycle, or mom will just lock me up and throw away the key, then deal with me through an "arranged" marriage."

Emma also said, "After we got back, mom sat down with me and demanded to know if you had raped me, or had forced me into anything illegal or against my will. Dean, you have no idea how hard it was for me not to burst out laughing. After I admitted that we did see each other naked a few times and did in fact have sex a couple times she realized she was on a road she really didn't want to be on, so since then she's never asked me any more questions about what went on there."

I looked at Em and grinned, "Sometimes I wonder what she would have thought had she seen you stark naked, standing over that gut-shot pirate screaming his lungs out." Emma gasped, the thought of that possibility horrifying her. Emma's sister was cool. Stacy was a couple years younger than Emma but that chick already knew the score, I ended up talking with her more than Emma at the homecoming party discovering all sorts of little "tidbits" about the Robinson family. When she realized I had a motorcycle, she was always bugging me to teach her how to ride, but because the situation with her mother was so tenuous, I had to refuse her.

This then was the situation I found myself in once Emma stopped horsing around and realized she was truly in love with me. Another fascinating detail dealt with the check I gave her for her share of the guns we found. "I've got it all sitting in a secret Pay Pal account, there was too much of a chance mom would have found a bank book or something, she's always snooping through my stuff. If she saw that amount as having been added to my bank account she would have started asking all sorts of questions about where it came from. Sooner or later she would have got it out of me, then that would be it between us, so just watch what you say around her or dad."

Slowly her mother began to accept me, the fact that my own mother was dead seemed to work in my favor for some strange reason, talking to her was always an effort, her subjects of interest revolved her work, her daughters and maintaining her lifestyle. Somehow I managed, I'd usually end up over at Em's a couple night a week having dinner with them usually because dad was out of town at a meeting, or working late. I was always on my best behavior, and made a supreme effort not to swear, and to try and show some interest in things her mother thought important.

Another thing that slowly developed was Emma's realization that she had the power to really motivate me. I wasn't the best student much of my problems stemming from the fact that I blamed myself for mom's death. Emma was sharp as a tack and started working with me to bring my GPA up. The fact that we would sit at the kitchen table when I went to Em's house for supper, and spend a couple solid hours doing schoolwork seemed to impress both her parents as to our intentions. Emma could be a real "slave driver" but when you are in love as we were, I didn't really mind. One thing was sure however, and that was that my grades really did go up. Maybe it was because I was more focused now, more mature, whatever it was, when I took the SAT test, I scored in the 98th percentile, qualifying me for the University of Michigan.

Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of bust ass hard work, and a whole lot of times I doubted myself, but my prom queen kept pushing me like a drill sergeant to get those grade up, we'd cuss and fight, but she stuck by me. "You stuck by me in my darkest days Dean, now it's my turn." About once a month, dad would have to fly to Chicago to straighten out some corporate fuck-up, leaving me alone. Although this had been going on before the island, it was usually frozen dinners Micky D's or take out pizza for me. Afterward, I started honing my cooking skills, and started getting creative. Whenever I'd eat over at Emma's house, I'd make it a point to jump right in and help her mom, who fancied herself a "fresh ingredients," chef. This also went a long way to impress her folks, and from time to time, I'd make up some bullshit story about all the healthy and nutritious stuff we ate on the island

Back to where dad would be gone for a couple days, whenever we could safely pull it off, Emma would come by, and we'd pretend we were on the island again. We'd start off by running out damn near all the hot water in the shower, then move to my bed. Emma had promised me no more grass, but an "acquired" bottle of Bacardi special rum, got things going, and we'd go at it like a couple of minks.

Once things had gotten back in the "groove," and Emma and I were seeing each other regularly the subject of college came up. As I mentioned earlier, I got accepted at the University of Michigan in their engineering program, Emma was looking at the medical department. Originally, Princeton had been the school her parents had "chosen" for her. One afternoon after having been "lost" on an island again, we sat and discussed just what we wanted to study in college. I was leaning towards civil engineering, and Emma something in biomedical. We hit the U of M website pretty hard and both decided we liked what they had. The tough part was selling it to her parents.

This is when the "shit hit the fan." Actually her dad folded pretty quick (having been a U of M graduate himself) Mommy dearest said "No." She was bound and determined to have her daughter go to Princeton. Her reasons for this were never really explained, I even talked to Emma's dad about it, all he could think of was that Emma's mom had missed out on an opportunity to go there, and now wanted to attend vicariously through her daughter. Whatever the reason, she wasn't budging. One evening when I was home a knock came at the door, dad answered it and an extremely upset Emma burst into the living room crying and shaking. It seems she had had a terrible fight with her mom, and had stormed out of the house in a terrible rage. Apparently, a lot of very hateful things were said as well. While I comforted Emma My dad took a phone call, apparently from her dad. Assuring him that his daughter was here, but very upset, he told us that they were on their way over.

Ten minutes later, her parents showed up, there were more accusations, and recriminations, when I started getting blamed for Emma's change of schools, dad stepped in. The adults retreated to the kitchen where we could hear raised voices. While I got Emma to calm down, something must have occurred in the other room, about fifteen minutes later, her mom came in and hugged and kissed Emma. The woman then practically broke down in front of us, begging Emma's forgiveness. To this day, I have never been witness to so much drama in my life, but in the end, my prom queen won out, both of us ended up attending U of M.

**Epilog**

Well that's pretty much my life so far, Two years into college Emma and I did the deed and got married, we want kids, but like on the island we've got to play things cool until later. So for right now it's the frugal life in married student housing, staying focused on our education, and talking about the day when we're rich, buying a boat, and perhaps checking out that island one more time.


End file.
